U.VA. TO OFFER AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSIC COURSES

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Aug. 30 -- Roll over Beethoven, here
comes Jimi Hendrix.
	Blues, gospel and rap will join the curriculum of
traditional forms of music being taught at the University of
Virginia this fall.  ÒBlack Popular MusicÓ and ÒAfrican Drumming and
Dance EnsembleÓ are two of the four new ethnomusicology classes
being offered for the first time.  
	The new African-American courses will be taught by Kyra D.
Gaunt and Michelle Kisliuk.  Their appointments to the McIntire
Department of Music are effective Sept. 1. Prior to coming to
Virginia, Gaunt completed her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.
Kisliuk, who holds a Ph.D. from New York University, taught at UCLA.
	ÒEthnomusicology, the anthropology of music, is a way of
approaching music which does not limit it to the page.  It is how
people use music, how music interacts with dance, religion and art,Ó
said  Gaunt, an assistant professor.  
	The new courses will offer students radical alternatives to
Mozart and Beethoven.  ÒEthnomusicology focuses on the people who
actually make the music. . . it is a way of opening up a methodology
for an oral musical tradition that has always existed,Ó Gaunt said. 
	ÒThe BaAka pygmy culture of Central Africa, for example,
does not distinguish clearly between song and dance, but instead
fuses them in a musical or cultural experience. Ethnomusicology is a
way of erasing and/or questioning musical boundaries between dance
and music, listener and performer, treating the whole experience as
music,Ó said Kisliuk, assistant professor.
	Gaunt and Kisliuk also bring exciting research to their
classrooms.  Gaunt is interested in the street games black girls
play and how those movements and melodies reappear in
African-American music.  GauntÕs course, ÒBlack Popular Music,Ó will
explore the roots of black recorded music and how its origins
interact with contemporary issues, particularly gender issues.  It
will focus on artists such as Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix and Aretha
Franklin, among others.
	In her course on West African music and dance, which will
culminate in a December performance, Kisluik will introduce the
rhythms of West Africa.  The course marks the beginning of a new
African Music Ensemble at the University.
	ÒThe African music courses will offer students an expanded
study of music of another culture that was not well represented here
before. And African-American music is a vital area in the history
and study of music today,Ó said Judith Shatin, chair and professor
of the music department.   
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August 29, 1996
	For more information, contact Judith Shatin at (804)
924-3052.  Television reporters should contact our TV News Office at
(804) 924-7550.