Steven Feld

Steven Feld is an American ethnomusicologist anthropologist, and linguist, who worked for many years with the Kaluli (Bosavi) people of Papua New Guinea. He earned a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.

He graduated with a BA cum laude at Hofstra University in anthropology in 1971. He first went to the Bosavi territory in 1976, accompanied by anthropologist Edward L. Schieffelin, whose recordings of the Bosavi inspired him to pursue this work. [Liner notes to "Bosavi: Rainforest Music from Papua New Guinea". Smithsonian Folkways, 2001] His work there fulfilled his dissertation (later published as "Sound and Sentiment") for his PhD from Indiana University in 1979 (in anthropology/linguistics/ethnomusicology). He later returned several times in the 1980s and 1990s to Papua New Guinea to research Bosavi song, rainforest ecology, and cultural poetics. He has also made briefer research visits to various locations in Europe.

He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Pennsylvania. He is currently (since 2003) a professor of anthropology and music at the University of New Mexico. Since 2001, he has also held a visiting appointment at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen, Norway, as a professor of world music. He is currently working on a project in Accra, Ghana.

In 2002, he founded the VoxLox label, "documentary sound art advocates for human rights and acoustic ecology."

He is also a musician, and he has been active in the New Mexican music scene since the 1970s. [ [http://www.eartotheearth.org/artists/feld.html Ear to the Earth artist page] ]

Some of Feld's recordings are sampled on the track, "Kaluli Groove," a 2007 album by the Global Drum Project, a group which consists of Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo.

Works

* "Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli expression". University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982, 2nd ed. 1990; based on dissertation
* (with Charles Keil) "Music Grooves". University of Chicago Press, 1994
* (with Keith Basso, as eds.) "Senses of Place". School of American Research Press, 1996
* (with Bambi B. Schieffelin and others) "Bosavi-English-Tok Pisin Dictionary". Australian National University, Pacific Linguistics C-153, 1998
* (with Dick Blau) "Soundscape". Wesleyan University Press, 2002
* (as editor/translator) "Jean Rouch: Ciné-Ethnography". University of Minnesota Press, 2003

Recordings

* "Music of the Kaluli". Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, 1981
* "The Kaluli of Papua Nugini: Weeping and Song". Bärenreiter Musicaphon, 1985
* "Voices of the Rainforest". Rykodisc, 1991
* "Rainforest Soundwalks: Ambiences of Bosavi, Papua New Guinea". Earth Ear, 2001
* "Bosavi: Rainforest Music from Papua New Guinea". Smithsonian Folkways, 2001
* "Bells and Winter Festivals of Greek Macedonia". Smithsonian Folkways, 2002

For VoxLox

* "The Time of Bells" Vol. 1 & 2, 2004; Vol. 3 (with Nii Noi Nortey), 2005; Vol. 4, 2006
* "Suikinkutsu: A Japanese Underground Water Zither", 2006

Notes

External links

* [http://www.unm.edu/~anthro/faculty/profiles/feld.htm UNM faculty website]
* [http://www.hf.uib.no/i/griaka/etnomus/staff/steve_en.html Grieg Academy faculty website]
* [http://www.acousticecology.org/presentation/intro.html Research Reports for the Ear: Soundscape Art in Scientific Presentations] by Jim Cummings, including some sound samples of Feld's and an analysis of his recording work
* [http://www.acousticecology.org/writings/palombini.html Interview] with Carlos Palombini