The James T. Koetting Prize is the Northeast Chapter's award for the outstanding graduate student paper presented at the annual chapter meeting. Here are a few past winners:

2002
Stephen Pixley, Wesleyan University, " Performance as Ethnographic Object: Musical Images of the Primitive in Hill Tribe Tourism"(abstract)

2001
Birgit Berg, Smith College, " The Kidung Jemaat: A Christian Hymnal in a Non-Christian World"(abstract)

2000
Susan Thomas's "The Transformation of the Black Man in the Cuban Zarzuela" treats issues of race and gender in a minstrel-related repertory of Cuba, making comparisons to the United States.

1999
Judith Casselberry of Wesleyan University won the 1999 prize for her paper, entitled "The Living Dead and Spirits: Inspiration and Guidance for Black Women in Popular American Music," (abstract)

1998
Robin Carruthers, M.A. candidate at Tufts University, won the 1998 prize for her paper entitled "CalamC: Characteristics of Lullaby in Venezuela." (abstract)

1996
Timothy J. Cooley, a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University, was awarded the 1996 Prize for his paper entitled "Authenticity on Trial in Polish Contest Festivals." (abstract)

1992
Patrick Hutchinson, a graduate student at Brown University, won the 1992 Prize for his paper, "Hand-Made Music: An Uilleann Pipers's Way with Words."

Stephen Pixley, Wesleyan University.
" Performance as Ethnographic Object: Musical Images of the Primitive in Hill Tribe Tourism."
Based upon recent fieldwork, this paper examines the performed display of upland ethnic minority cultures (hilltribes) for tourists in the mountains of Northern Thailand, and the use of music in crafting images of primitivism. Case studies of three varieties of staged culture shows will demonstrate how dichotomous aspects of the Primitive saturate hill tribe tourism. While hilltribe tourism's performative nature has been widely discussed, especially in Erik Cohen's theory of communicative staging, this paper addresses the specific contribution of music to tourism narratives. Culture shows at mass-audience venues utilize musical strategies of simplification, ethnic cross-dressing, superficial glossing, and the conflation of unrelated ethnic groups to perpetuate a savage and undeveloped image, thereby achieving an impoverishment of both the sound and meaning of hilltribe music, and ultimately a musical silencing of their subjects.
Borrowing from Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's analysis of how museum objects become ethnographic through processes of detachment and contextualization, the second part of this paper theorizes that hilltribe music and dance within the khantoke dinner show do not function as concert performances, but rather as ethnographic objects fulfilling expectations of the tribal primitive, and illustrating the narrative of the Thai nation. The same primitivizing musical strategies that serve to detach hilltribe music from its musical roots, also serve to recontextualize it within the khantoke show's narrative of how hilltribes and Northern Thais differ from each other in the national imagination.

Birgit Berg, Smith College.
"The Kidung Jemaat: A Christian Hymnal in a Non-Christian World"
Although it is the largest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia is the home to a number of diverse Christian communities. In an attempt to unite these communities the Indonesian Council of Churches (I.C.C.) sponsored a program to "scientifically study several indigenous Indonesian music system and their potential for being utilized in and by the Church" (Cooley 1981). A decade later, the I.C.C. published a Christian hymnal, the Kidung Jemaat. This hymnal contains over 100 hymns written by Indonesians, some in indigenous styles, but it also contains hymns from a variety of countries, cultures, and denominations. Hymns in the Kidung Jemaat can be traced to the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist traditions of Europe and America, as well as to cultures and communities in such places as India, Zambia, and Sri Lanka. The aim of this paper is to investigate the Kidung Jemaat; the styles, forms, and traditions found in its contents; its use in everyday worship; and its background, including a look into the history of Christian conversion in Indonesia and the role conversion played in the promotion and demotion of indigenous arts in the Church.

Judith Casselberry of Wesleyan University won the 1999 prize for her paper, entitled "The Living Dead and Spirits: Inspiration and Guidance for Black Women in Popular American Music."
Spiritual text by African-American women recording artist has most often been examined in the context of the Christian spirituals. However, Black women’s spiritual text exists in many musical genres, and outside of conventional constructs of hierarchical modes of religion and worship. This paper explores examples of traditional West African cosmologies and ontologies— an African sacred world view—apparent in original lyrical text by African-American women. Particular attention is given to the roles of the living dead and spirits in the work of Bernice Johnson Reagon, historian, activist, and founder of the internationally renowned, women’s a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Blue Note label, jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves.

A distinction between spirits and the living dead is made in West and Central African cosmology, and other Black Atlantic belief systems. Utilizing field research, personal interviews, and song text analysis, I explore how this distinction is manifest in the work of these two contemporary Black women artists.

Robin Carruthers, "CalamC: Characteristics of Lullaby in Venezuela."
The paper contains information regarding research in Venezuela between September and December of 1997. The research focused on obtaining examples of lullabies from Barlovento, a region of the state of Miranda. This paper covers historical information on lullabies in general, origins and influences on the lullabies, and textual and musical analysis of the lullabies. Prior work on lullabies considered the common textual and musical characteristics of lullabies from different regions of the world (USA, Turkey, Indonesia, and South India). I use this group of similar elements when analyzing the lullaby collected from Barlovento. I chose one of the fifteen lullabies, "CalamC)", to provide an example of my analytic process.

Timothy Cooley, "Authenticity on Trial in Polish Contest Festivals."
Song and dance troupes and contest festivals have been part of the cultural landscape since the Second World War in "Podhale", the Tatra mountain region of Poland. Festival performances and their larger context of tourism are part of the metamorphoses of Podhale from an isolated and avoided mountain region into a major tourist destination. A prominent feature of a contest festival is a jury of folklorists, ethnomusicologists, dance ethnologists, and other cultural experts who judge performing "folkloric" troupes on the basis of "authenticity." The music, dance, costumes, and local dialect presented on the festival stage are entertainment to some, and highly symbolic to others. To many "Górale" (mountaineers from Podhale), the festival performance is a carefully crafted public statement of ethnic identity-identity that is in dialogue with multiple constructions of the "authentic."

Recent writings in ethnomusicology, anthropology and folklore recognize the interdependence between the industries of heritage, tourism and ethnography. In this paper, I focus on one intersection of these industries-the festival performance. My research reveals that Górale musicians and dancers perform in response to, and sometimes in resistance to, the notions of authenticity valued in a festival setting. Based on field research in Poland conducted since 1992, this presentation shows the impact of festival performances and their supporting industries of heritage, tourism, and ethnography on Górale, Górale music culture, and on Górale ethnic identity.