The International Folk Music Council and 'The Americans': On the Effects of

Stereotypes on the Institutionalization of Ethnomusicology

Author(s): Dieter Christensen
Source: Yearbook for Traditional Music , 1988, Vol. 20 (1988), pp. 11-18
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/768162

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Yearbook for Traditional Music

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL AND
'THE AMERICANS':
ON THE EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES ON THE
INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY1

by Dieter Christensen

The history of scholarship cannot be constructed just in terms o

remote and aloof from the people who conceived or accepted
acted on them-or did not. To understand the course that a p
branch of knowledge-in our case, the study of music in the co
Western academia-has taken, it is necessary to consider the in
and institutions that have affected the course of events. Corporate
as they are taken by the governing bodies of scholarly societies, a
processes that lead to them, can provide insights into the wor
institutional scholarship; those of an international organization
dimension of national or even continental distinctions in the
knowledge, such as they are implied in the notions of "Europea
"American" ethnomusicology.
The first twenty years of the International Folk Music Council
the only structurally international society in the field of tradition
are marked by a series of crises that threatened the existence of th
and had to be addressed by its governing body, the Executive
key issue, both for the economic development and the ideological
of the Council, was the relation of the then European-domina
to "the Americans", an issue that was partly resolved or neutralize
when, in 1967, the Executive Board decided to move the headqu
the ICTM to Canada, a move that was accomplished two year
In this essay, I shall consider the process that arose for the IFM
a juxtaposition of Europeans and Americans, with special attention
perceptions and preconceptions that influenced decisions of the Co
governing body.2
In June of 1954, the Executive Board of the IFMC met in Stu
discuss, as a central issue, "The scientific activities of the Council"
Karpeles, the Honorary Secretary and spiritus rector of the IFMC
on some of the criticisms that members had voiced, particularly "
work of the Council was amateurish and that the scientific as
neglected"-criticism which she felt to have some justification
As an explanation for these shortcomings, Maud Karpeles cited f
reasons and little cooperation from the Correspondents of the
"on whom the responsibility for the scientific work of the Counc
More important, she also believed that the "scientific work to wh
Council might with advantage lend its auspices was being un
independently of the Council, for instance, the meetings of exper
under the auspices of Unesco and the I.M.C. and the ethno-mu
organization that was being formed in the United States. With reg

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
12 / 1988 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

the latter, she had suggested to the organisers the desirability

operation with the IFMC but had had no reply".4
It is here that, for the first time, American scholars as a group f
in the deliberations of the IFMC, and not just as a fleeting issue. At
and subsequent meetings of the IFMC Executive Board, conside
attention is given to "the Americans," the "American group E
Musicology," "the American group which issues the news-letter
Ethnomusicology," etc. Plans are made and concrete steps are tak
Council's strong reaction to the developments in the United States a
to have three causes. First, the IFMC, in its eighth year, seemed
stagnating: unsatisfactory membership development endangered the
economic basis of the Council. Second, disappointment with the
direction of the Council was loudly voiced by those members wh
seeking a vehicle for international intellectual exchange. Final
obviously energetic group of scholars in the economically strong
States was perceived as laying claim to the scholarly study of all
including folk music-not only in North America, but througho
World. This group was calling on scholars throughout the World
them. It looked like an invasion into IFMC territory where the d
were the weakest: in the scholarly domain.
Over the 13 years that followed the Executive Board meeting o
in Stuttgart, "the Americans" maintained a prominent place in
considerations and actions of the IFMC policy makers. Only in 1967,
the headquarters of the Council moved temporarily to Denmark
paration for its eventual relocation to Canada and when the Co
major publication, the Yearbook of the International Folk Music Cou
had been entrusted to Alexander Ringer and the Illinois University
did "the Americans" cease to be an issue for the IFMC.
Meanwhile, the activities of Americans within and outside the Council
and, equally significant, perceptions of "the Americans" as held mainly
by Europeans, had a profound effect on the development of the IFMC
To put things into context, it may be useful to recall the global scene in
which the IFMC was established in 1947. Maud Karpeles's (1971:14-32)
reminiscences of the Council's first twenty-one years, and Alexander
Ringer's (1971:5-6) analysis, both published in the Yearbook for 1969, shed
light on the social and intellectual climate in which the IFMC arose. A
Ringer puts it, "when the International Folk Music Council was founded,
the world was still stunned by the ravages of a war fought with unprece-
dented cruelty. Politically, the situation remained fluid nearly every-
where . . ." (Ringer 1971:5). In keeping with the goals of UNESCO, the
IFMC aimed, above all, at rebuilding the bridges across international
boundaries, physical as well as conceptual, that for so long had remained
in ruin.
Following a UNESCO model and using channels opened by that
organization, many of the participants in the constituting session that was
held at the Belgian Institute on Belgrave Square in London on 22 September
1947 were government delegates. The USA was represented by Dr. Duncan
Emrich, chief of the folklore section of the Library of Congress, a folklorist

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
CHRISTENSEN IFMC AND THE AMERICANS / 13

and writer who had studied at Brown Uni

and who was just entering a distinguished
The first Executive Board was establish
the constituting assembly on a scheme
tation into account. Dr. Emrich became the member from the United
States. There is no evidence that he did anything in or for the IFMC after
1947, except to resign from the Board in 1953.6
In 1948, the Council invited 140 individuals in thirty-five countries to
become "Correspondents"-personages of distinction who would carry
on the constitutional work of the IFMC. Canada received ten invitations
but the USA received the lion's share after the UK (30): sixteen. The list
includes, among others, Bertrand Bronson, Percy Grainger, Alan Lomax
Curt Sachs, George Herzog (who did not reply until 1950) and Charle
Seeger. The list did not grow much, even though in 1950 an IFMC
conference was held in the United States when Indiana University rescued
a meeting originally scheduled for Montreal. Only four USA Corre-
spondents were added in 1951, among them Gertrude Kurath, Albert Lord,
and the American Folklore Society.
At the 1952 Executive Board meeting it was noted that the American
Folklore Society "had entrusted to Mr. Charles Seeger the formation of
a national committee [of the IFMC] in the USA".7 Seeger was appointed
a Liaison Officer in 1952 and also co-opted to the Executive Board; in 1953,
he was nominated for regular election to the Board," but he did not attend
any Board meeting nor did he apparently much liaise. His one and only
Liaison Officer report was received together with his resignation as Liaison
Officer and as a Board member, in 1956.9
It seems then fair to say that until 1954, American participation and
interest in the IFMC was hardly more than nominal; IFMC activities
centered on Europe; the one conference held outside Europe, at Indiana
University in 1950, saw little European participation, and was margina
to the IFMC. "The Americans" as a group were not a significant entity
in the world view of the IFMC.
All this changed under the confluence of two developments in 1954:
it had dawned on the Board that international festivals of folk music as
they had accompanied the Venice (1949) and Biarritz/Pamplona (1953)
conferences, were losing their legitimacy in IFMC terms as well as their
attraction to IFMC members. It had become more and more difficult to
find "authentic" performers, and the same performing groups tended to
appear in all the festivals. Conference participants grew tired of watching
the same show. At the same time, to those of a scholarly bent the IFMC
did not offer enough. Now, the new "American group" which had written
to 70 people internationally in 1953 and had mailed its first Ethno-
Musicology Newsletter to 300 around the beginning of 1954,10 was
perceived as serious competition. So the IFMC Board took action. An offer
of cooperation with the Americans, sent in the spring of 1954, had drawn
no response by 2 June of that year when the Board met in Stuttgart."
One year later, when the Board considered filling a vacancy, it was "the
general opinion . . . that first choice should be given to a member of the

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
14 / 1988 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

American 'Ethno-Musicology' group ... ," the actual appointmen

made when Miss Karpeles had circulated "a report on the situatio
her visit to America."'2 The Board also approved in princip
Karpeles' plans to cooperate with "the Americans" in the doma
publications, and empowered her to issue invitations to serve
Correspondents "to such members of the American Ethnomus
group as might seem desirable", all this to be accomplished dur
visit to the United States in the Fall of 1955.
On 9 December 1955, she then wrote "to propose Dr. Willard Rhodes
of Columbia University, who has been appointed President of the newly-
formed Society for Ethno-Musicology. I consider it of great importance
to have a close link with this organization . . ." In the same letter,'3 she
announced that an IFMC Commission for the Scientific Study of Folk
Music would meet in Freiburg im Breisau under Walter Wiora, July 22-24,
1956.'4 The "American" and the "scientific" issues, clearly interrelated,
had been deftly addressed, though certainly not laid to rest.
During this visit, Maud Karpeles "had discussions individually with each
member of this group [i.e., the "American group which issued the news-
letter entitled Ethnomusicology"], which included Charles Seeger and
Willard Rhodes, on the relationship of the IFMC with the proposed Society
for Ethnomusicology .. ."'5 Seeger had suggested "that the two organ-
izations should amalgamate to form an International Society for Ethno-
musicology." Karpeles argued to the Executive Board that SEM's "field
of studies would extend beyond the scope of the IFMC which limited its
studies to the subject of folk music, including non-European. Secondly,
the Council would be loath to relinquish the term folk music from the
title".'6 Concrete suggestions such as a joint newsletter did not materialize.
The positions had been staked, and the relationship between the two
societies should remain one of civil, but somewhat distant co-existence.
Cooperation was envisioned only where it appeared to the mutual benefit
of both organisations: the SEM, an essentially USA-national, professional
organization with a global scope of studies, on the one hand, and the
IFMC, a structurally international organization with an ideologically
delimited scope of interests that emphasized trans-national relations, on
the other.
At the Liege-conference of the IFMC in 1958, which for the first time
advanced extra-Eurpoean themes, Alan Merriam proposed in the General
Assembly a joint IFMC-SEM membership at a reduced rate, which was
approved and implemented, but did not last. It did help, though, to raise
IFMC-membership in the USA and Canada.17 Other cooperative ventures
proposed by the IFMC, for instance, on the continuation of the Kunst
bibliography,'8 came to naught. The efforts of the IFMC to form a US
National Committee, left first with Charles Seeger and resumed after
Seeger's resignation, were equally unsuccessful. In 1957, Maud Karpeles
reported that "she had been given to understand that it was unnecessary
to form a national committee of the IFMC in view of the formation of
the Society for Ethnomusicology."'9

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
CHRISTENSEN IFMC AND THE AMERICANS / 15

A United States National Committee was nevertheless established in

1962 and officially recognized in 1963, with Charles Haywood, Ruth
Rubin, Nicholas England, Mary Gadd of the Country Dance Society of
America, and Henrietta Yurchenco as the directors, all of whom then were
in New York City. The US National Committee of the IFMC issued a
newsletter, Folk Music and Dance, worked to increase the American
membership of the Council, and attempted to raise funds but ran out of
steam within two or three years, just as the mother organization was facing
an acute crisis. In short, by 1966 dwindling resources and growing
administrative costs had left the IFMC with relocation of the Secretariat
and other dramatic changes or bankruptcy as the only options.
Dr. Maud Karpeles, who had created the IFMC and supported it from
its inception not only with her vision, enthusiasm, and shrewd diplomacy,
but also with her labor as the Honorary Secretary and as the host-
accommodating the IFMC office in her London flat-had to withdraw
much of her support due to failing health and economic pressures. By 1964,
almost two-thirds of the IFMC revenues went for payroll; offices had to
be moved within London repeatedly, and finally there was not enough
money to pay the rent. In 1966, while Dr. Barbara Krader was Executive
Secretary, the first scholar in the post, trying hard to activate American
support for the IFMC as well as strengthening ties in Eastern Europe and
with UNESCO, the IFMC Board had to come to a decision on the future
of the Council. It is in these crises that the rational and the irrational,
perceptions and attitudes not normally voiced, come to the fore and can
best be probed.
On 30 October 1961, upon her return from another trip to the USA,
Maud Karpeles reminded the Advisory Committee of her impending
retirement as Honorary Secretary and the need to find a replacement in
the face of a financially insecure situation. As a solution she suggested
"the transfer of headquarters to another country, possibly the United
States."20 In April 1966, when Barbara Krader had resigned as Executive
Secretary and the financial situation of the Council was very bleak, Maud
Karpeles reiterated this suggestion almost verbatim,2' but the members
of the Advisory Committee were still not ready to face the facts. One
member held that a move to the USA would be "a last resort as the Council
would then lose its international character"; and there was general
agreement that "London was the natural centre".
Meanwhile, cautious soundings were undertaken, and interest was
signalled from the University of Illinois, which offered attractive terms
and the part-time services of Professor Alexander Ringer as Executive
Secretary, or, as he would have preferred it, Executive Director of the
IFMC. At the IFMC Conference in Ghana in July/August 1966, Dr. Ringer
discussed details with Maud Karpeles and Willard Rhodes and presented
his notion that business management of the Council, i.e., the collecting
of subscriptions, should remain in London. He also counted on the
cooperation of Bruno Nettl, his colleague at the University of Illinois, and
expressed interest in transforming the Journal of the IFMC into a Yearbook
to be published by Illinois U. Press.22

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
16 / 1988 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

The Executive Board of the IFMC were appraised, and the reacti
swift. There were urgings that "headquarters . . . remain if poss
London, or at any rate, in Europe." Several tentative and one definite
(from Germany) were received to house the IFMC and to provi
Executive Secretary; Denmark thought that it could receive the IF
the future, though not immediately. The Advisory Committee, weig
arguments and merits, were attracted by the prospect that Prof
Ringer and Nettl, both considered as being of European background,
jointly assume the administration of the Council; by the interest of
University Press in the Journal; and by the relative financial securit
a period of at least three years. Over Dr. Karpeles's fears "that a
to the USA would mean the loss of the Council's international charac
and the loss of interest in Europe", and over her urging to "hold out
Denmark can take us",23 the Advisory Committee recommended that
Illinois offer be accepted. This was on 13 September 1966.
A few days later, information was received from Illinois that
Ringer's assertions concerning Bruno Nettl's role in the administrati
the Council into question. Apparently, Nettl was not in agreemen
what was to be his lot. This instantly fanned the smoldering doubts
the wisdom of a move to the USA, and efforts were renewed to keep
Council in Europe. Copenhagen, specifically the Dansk Folkemindesam
with Nils Schidrring, Poul Rovsing Olsen, and Thorkild Knu
extended an offer to house the IFMC for at least 18 months, beg
at the same time the Council would have otherwise moved to the United
States of America. In the middle of the protracted negotiations, there
arrived a tentative expression of interest from Graham George in Canada.
"I certainly don't want to sit quietly and let the IFMC slide into disaster,
when maybe Canada could help!"24
Finally, in April 1967, the Advisory Committee presented the Executive
Board of the IFMC with the choice between Illinois and Copenhagen. The
recommendation of the Advisory Committee was for Illinois, because it
offered "a better guarantee for the continuance of the work of the Council."
Some members of the Executive Board responded with familiar arguments
against a move to America: the Dansk Folkemindesamling of Copenhagen
is closer to the Council; the Council has, due to its subject matter and
by tradition, most of its concerns in Europe and should therefore keep
its office "on our continent"; ". . . in view of the global political
situation . . . it would offer advantages to move the office to a country
like Denmark .. .",25 but the Board nevertheless voted overwhelmingly
for Illinois. Opposition came mainly from West Germany, Belgium and
Scandinavia. The Copenhagen offer was declined with expressions of
appreciation and regret, and Illinois was accepted subject to the working-
out of certain details.
To this end, Professor Ringer, Dr. Karpeles, and several Board members
met in Berlin in June, 1967. The result was dramatic. On 22 June 1967,
the IFMC advised Provost Lanier of the University of Illinois that "some
members of the Executive Board have recently had an opportunity of
discussion with Professor Ringer and have come to the conclusion that

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
CHRISTENSEN IFMC AND THE AMERICANS / 17

the scheme of organisation which he has in

Ringer's insistence that the financial side of th
is cited as the stumbling-block; the genero
accepted in principle, is declined.26 First,
generous Danes had been persuaded to acce
only for a year and a half. And then, in 1969,
able to bring the Council to Canada to give it
in Kingston for a full dozen years.
Through all this and the years since, the IFM
The Journal did go to Illinois University Pres
the Yearbook under the editorship of Alexand
his turn as the Editor, too, and the Yearboo
Americans" are no longer perceived as a threa
never have been. SEM and ICTM are both un
complement each other: SEM as the regi
America that represents the interests of prof
cologists in the USA and Canada, and at the
of ethnomusicology world-wide through it
as the international organization in the do
including ethnomusicology that serves scho
the mutual recognition and understanding of
headquarters of Council is now in the Unite
the word folk from its title, and with it
programmatic constraints that have hampe
twenty years; but it has not lost its internati
on the contrary: not only statistically and eco
the International Council for Traditional M
the pursuit of its original charter: to overc
and intellectual, that still separate those w
traditional music.

NOTES

1. Revised version of an address delivered at the opening session of the 29th Conferen
of the International Council for Traditional Music, Berlin (GDR), 30 July, 1987.
2. A knowledge of the general history of the ICTM is assumed. For surveys, see Karpe
1971, Ringer 1971, and Erich Stockmann's essay in this volume. The specific data w
drawn largely from the unpublished Minutes of the Executive Board of the Internation
Folk Music Council and those of its sub-committees as well as other files in the Secretar
of the International Council for Traditional Music in New York.
3. EB Minute 160/1954.
4. EB Minute 160/1954.
5. See the unsigned entry, Emrich, Duncan, in Contemporary Authors 1983, p. 1
6. EB Minute 126/1953.
7. EB Minute 107/1952.
8. EB Minute 127/1953.
9. EB Minute 187/1956.
10. See Ethno-Musicology Newsletter 1, December 1953.
11. EB Minute 160/1954.
12. EB Minute 180/1955.

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
18 / 1988 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

13. Maud Karpeles to members of the Executive Board, 9 December 1955.

14. Letter from Maud Karpeles to Executive Board members, 9 December, 195
15. EB Minute 200, 1 August, 1956.
16. EB Minute 200, 1 August, 1956. This attitude was still very much in eviden
in 1979 at the IFMC-Conference in Oslo, the author first publicly proposed to
the name of the Council from "International Folk Music Council" to "International
Council for Traditional Music".
17. EB Minute 237/1958.
18. AC Minute 5, April 1960.
19. EB Minute 209/1957.
20. Maud Karpeles, Memorandum to Advisory Board, 30 October, 1961.
21. Minute AC, 21 April, 1966. Bruno Nettl remembers that, passing through Lon
he had called Maud Karpeles and in response to her dire allusions to the impend
dissolution of the Council, had suggested: "You need an American institution" (Pers
communication, Berlin 7/30/1987.
22. Notes of the meeting Ringer, Maud Karpeles, Rhodes in Ghana, appended to AC M
155, 13 September 1966.
23. AC Minute 155, 13 September 1966.
24. Letter from Professor Graham George to Dr. Maud Karpeles, 20 January, 196
25. Letter from Prof. Dr. Walter Wiora to the IFMC, 21 April, 1967.
26. Letter from Felicia Stallman, IFMC Executive Secretary, to Provost Lanier, 22 June,

REFERENCES CITED

1. Publications:

Contemporary Authors
1983 Contemporary Authors. New revision series, vol. 9. Ed. by Ann Evory
and Linda Metzger. Detroit: Gale Research Company.
Karpeles, Maud
1971 "The International Folk Music Council--Twenty-One Years." Yearboo
of the International Folk Music Council 1: 14-32.
Ringer, Alexander
1971 "Editor's Introduction." Yearbook of the International Folk Music Counc
1: 3-7.

2. Unpublished materials in the files of the ICTM Secretariat:

Minutes of the Advisory Committee of the IFMC, 1959-1967
cited as AC Minute #/date
Minutes of the Executive Board of the IFMC 1947-1981
cited as EB Minute #/date
Graham George
letter to Maud Karpeles, 20 January, 1967
Karpeles, Maud
letter to members of the IFMC Executive Board, 9 December, 1955
Memorandum to the IFMC Advisory Board, 30 October, 1961
Stallman, Felicia
letter to Provost Lanier, University of Illinois, 22 June, 1967
Wiora, Walter
letter to the IFMC, 21 April, 1967

This content downloaded from

211.103.172.85 on Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms