Arts & Culture

Love/Hate Relationship With Gypsies and Gypsy Music Focus of Longyear Lecture

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 15, 2015)  The University of Kentucky School of Music will present a colloquium talk and workshop on Gypsy music by Carol Silverman as part of the Rey M. Longyear Colloquium Lecture Series. The talk is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 17, in the Niles Gallery located in the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center. Silverman will also hold a Balkan singing workshop the following afternoon at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 18, in the Niles Gallery.

Carol Silverman is a professor of cultural anthropology and folklore at the University of Oregon. As part of the Longyear Lecture, she will present her research in a talk titled “Global Gypsy: Balkan Romani Music, Appropriation and Representation.”

In the last 20 years, the popularity of Balkan "Gypsy" music has exploded, becoming a staple at world music festivals and dance clubs in the United States and Western Europe. At the same time, thousands of Balkan Roma have emigrated westward due to deteriorating living conditions. Entrenched stereotypes of thievery have arisen amidst deportations and harassment. In this heightened atmosphere of xenophobia, Roma, as Europe’s largest minority and its quintessential “other,” face the paradox that they are revered for their music yet reviled as people. 

Balkan Gypsy music is simultaneously a commodity, a trope of multiculturalism, and a potent in-group symbol in cosmopolitan contexts. Focusing on clubs and festivals, this ethnographic presentation investigates the ramifications of the current scene for Romani performers and non-Romani musicians, producers, audiences and marketers.

Silverman has done research with Roma for over 25 years in Balkans, Western Europe and the U.S. Her work explores the intersection of politics, music, human rights, gender and state policy with a focus on issues of representation. A professional performer and teacher of Balkan music, she also works with the Voice of Roma

In addition to scores of articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes, Silverman published "Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora" (Oxford University Press, 2012), which won the Merriam Book Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. She is also the recipient of numerous prestigious fellowships including the John Simon Guggenheim and the American Council of Learned Societies Fellowships.

The UK School of Music, part of UK College of Fine Arts, has garnered national recognition for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as music education, composition, theory and music history.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu