Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions
"John M. Schechter is Professor of Music, presently also serving as Provost of Merrill College, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received the Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied ethnomusicology with Girard Bihague, Andean anthropology with Richard Schaedel, and Quechua with Louisa Stark and Guillermo Delgado-P. Since 1985 he has taught ethnomusicology and music theory, and, up until 2000, directed the Taki qan and Voces Latin American Ensembles, at UC Santa Cruz. With Guillermo Delgado-P., Schechter is co-editor of Quechua Verbal Artistry: The Inscription of Andean Voices/Arte Expresivo Quechua: La Inscripcisn de Voces Andinas (2004; in press), a volume dedicated to Quechua song text, narrative, poetry, dialogue, myth, and riddle. He is general editor of, and a contributing author to, Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions (1999), a volume examining music-cultural traditions in distinct regions of Latin America, with chapters by ethnomusicologists specializing in those regions. He authored The Indispensable Harp: Historical Development, Modern Roles, Configurations, and Performance Practices in Ecuador and Latin America (1992). Schechter's other publications have explored the evolution of the UC Santa Cruz Taki qan ensemble; formulaic expression in Ecuadorian Quichua sanjuan; recent evolution in the bomba, a focal African-Ecuadorian musical genre; the syncretic nature of the Andean Corpus Christi celebration; and the ethnography and cultural history of the Latin American/Iberian child's wake music-ritual."