[ONLINE] Doctoral Colloquium (Music): Dr. Johann S. Buis, Schulich Distinguished Visiting Chair in Music
The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.
Doctoral Colloquium: Dr. Johann S. Buis, Schulich Distinguished Visiting Chair in Music
Join URL: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/82439650053
TITLE:
Structural Cultures, Emotional Health, and the Concert Stage. Lessons from South Africa.
ABSTRACT:
Oscar-winning composer, Principal Solo dancer in Britten’s Oriana for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation seventy years ago, representatives in orchestras, universities, jazz and pop icons, and numerous parts of the international music world are musicians born in South Africa. Marred for nearly fifty years (1948-94) by 146 laws of neo-Nazi-inspired racial segregation, now thirty years after the demise of that era, the multi-ethnic South African concert stage teaches the world new lessons of musicians’ emotional health amidst structural cultures. Four case studies ending with the triumphal rise of post-apartheid opera divas hold lessons for overcoming structural constraints of access, exposure, training, and above all intercultural emotional health strategies of musicians.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Johann.S.Buis [at] wheaton.edu (Johann S. Buis), Associate Professor of Musicology, Wheaton College, Illinois, was tenured in musicology both at the University of Georgia (1989-97) and Wheaton College (2003-present). His awards include the Schulich Distinguished Visiting Chair in Music (2021-2022), McGill University, a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Fellowship (2022-2023), post-doctoral Rockefeller Research Fellowship (1995-96) at the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR), and a Fulbright Student Fellowship (1982-83).
He holds degrees and diplomas from London University, Ball State University, the University of Cape Town, Mozarteum University of Salzburg, and the University of the Western Cape, among others.
His scholarship ranges from performance history of early European music to the aesthetics and reception history of Black music between the United States and urban centers in Africa. He is co-author of Shout Because You're Free! The Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia (University of Georgia Press, 1998). A versatile public musicologist, he has published widely, from College Music Symposium, Ethnomusicology, Early Music America, MLA Notes, to Torture: Quarterly Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture and Issue: A Journal of Opinion, and other periodicals.
He is Past-President of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music (SCSM), an international professional academic organization. He chaired the Board of Directors of SDG Music Foundation (Soli Deo Gloria, Inc.), a commissioning and advocacy foundation for sacred music in the biblical tradition.
His professional activities include representation as a Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors of the American Musicological Society (AMS) and nearly ten committee assignments of the AMS. He served on standing committees of the Society for American Music (SAM).
He directed both International Initiatives at the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR), Columbia College Chicago, and the African Studies Program at the University of Georgia.
During recent years, he has been active in interdisciplinary scholarship integrating musicology, ethnomusicology, and cultural theory. At present, he is in his 23rd year season as a pre-concert lecturer at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has also held numerous professional development seminars in the USA, the Caribbean, Germany, and South Africa. His experience in exploring new pathways in American and Africanist scholarship brings fresh perspectives to music scholarship.
