Highlights from the Ethnomusicology Archive: Music of Mexico Ensemble
Submitted by Maureen Russell on November 30, 2012 - 8:18pm
As I mentioned in a previous column, the Ethnomusicology Archive holds the Department of Ethnomusicology collection. This collection includes recordings and photographs documenting guest artists, lectures, and performance ensembles associated with Ethnomusicology at UCLA. It might surprise some of you to know that this is one of our mostly highly used collections.
Donn Borcherdt playing guitarrón
Today I thought I would focus on the Music of Mexico ensemble. Scholars from UCLA's own Lauryn Salazar to Jesús Jáuregui of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia have studied UCLA's Ethnomusicology's Music of Mexico ensemble.
The ensemble was founded by graduate student Donn Borcherdt (the Archive also holds his field recordings) in 1961. We are often asked about images of the early ensemble and much of what the Archive holds can be seen on the Department's Ensemble History: Music of Mexico Ensemble page.
I wanted to share three brand new images that we just received from Robert Saxe, UCLA '67, '79. Saxe earned his Ph.D. in Management, "The Customer Orientation of Salespeople" (demonstrating the wide reach of UCLA Ethnomusicology's performance ensembles), but also played violin, guitar, and jarana huasteca in the Music of Mexico ensemble. Dr. Saxe believes these images are from 1964.
Huasteca group. Robert Saxe, Larry Saunders, Donn Borcherdt
Jarocho group. Robert Saxe, Donn Borcherdt, Art Gerst, Larry Saunders
Part of the mariachi. Robert Saxe, Larry Saunders, Hardja Susilo, Donn Borcherdt
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