Highlights from the Ethnomusicology Archive: the Charlotte Heth collection
Submitted by Maureen Russell on May 14, 2015 - 8:28pm
Charlotte Heth has a long and distinguished history at UCLA. In 1973, she began teaching a survey course on American Indian music. In 1975 she completed her disseration in Ethnomusicology, "Stomp dance music of the Oklahoma Cherokee: a study of contemporary practice with special reference to the Illinois District Council Ground." Heth was director of UCLA's American Indian Studies Center (1976-1987) and Chair of UCLA's Deparment of Ethnomusicology (1990-1992). Heth was also President (1993-1995) of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Heth retired from UCLA in 1994 to become Assistant Director for Public Programs at the National Museum of the American Indian. If you want to learn more about Heth, read Victoria Levine's 2013 interview with Heth in the Society for Ethnomusicology Newsletter.
Celebrating 40 Years of Ethnic Studies at UCLA 1969-2009, includes interview with Charlotte Heth
The Archive holds Heth's fieldwork recordings; these recordings were used in support of her doctoral research. I should also add that the Heth recordings are some of our most highly repatriated materials.
In addition to the field recordings, we have several videorecordings that were made during Heth's Sociology of American Indian music (Music 153C) class in 1976 and 1977. Two of these are now part of the Ethnomusicology Archive collection in California Light and Sound.
Traditional music of native Northwest California: brush dance, feather dance, and gambling songs. Discussion and performances by Loren Bommelyn (Tolowa), Aileen Figueroa (Yurok), Joy Sundberg (Yurok) and Charlotte Heth (Cherokee). Recorded at the UCLA Media Engineering Center on April 12, 1976, during the class session of UCLA Music 153C, Sociology of American Indian music.
Traditional music of native Northwest California: brush dance, feather dance, and gambling songs. Discussion and performances by Loren Bommelyn (Tolowa), Aileen Figueroa (Yurok), Joy Sundberg (Yurok) and Charlotte Heth (Cherokee). Recorded at the UCLA Media Engineering Center on May 23, 1977, during the class session of UCLA Music 153C, Sociology of American Indian music.
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