Study Group Board - 2023

Katharina Döring, PhD, ethnomusicologist, professor of art-education and researcher of the musical arts of the African Diaspora, researcher of Samba de Roda - Bahia for two decades, with several projects and publications. Works and researches in the interface: ethnomusicology; music education; arts and cultural and de-colonial studies; geography and cultural history and life stories. Adjunct professor at UNEB for 21 years in the area of Arts, integrates the professional Master of Music (PPGPROM - UFBA), since 2013; Master Cultural Criticism (UNEB) from 2016-2019; and continues in the Master of African Studies, Indigenous Peoples and Black Cultures (PPGEAFIN-UNEB), since 2019. Coordinator and researcher of the project and research group "Koringoma - Laboratory of the memories and scenic-poetic-musical practices of popular, black and afro-Latin cultures in Latin America". Coordinator of the project "Ethno Bahia - musical residence of teaching-learning of music of oral tradition", member of the international network Jeunesses Musicales Internationales (JMI) - Ethno World.

She has extensive experience in creating, coordinating and organizing intercultural projects, seminars and conferences, being multilingual (Portuguese, German, English, fluent French and medium Spanish) and wants to contribute to a better dialogue between countries within ICTMD LAT-CAR. She proposes an emphasis on Afro-diasporic, indigenous and decolonial themes and aggregated social and political movements, as well as greater interaction with young researchers and activists, with the possibility of aggregating and collaborating on various initiatives, such as a magazine, radio program and even festive and cultural gatherings. Proposes interdisciplinary commissions with the arts training areas in the ICTMD - LAT-CAR countries, due to the immense and urgent demand to decolonize the curricula in music, dance and all the arts!

Javier Silvestrini (1978-) is from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He studied classical guitar performance at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, and music pedagogy at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna - mdw. He is a Ph.D. fellow in ethnomusicology at the Department for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the mdw, currently completing his Ph.D. studies on Afro-Caribbean Plena, under the supervision of Professors Ursula Hemetek and Julio Mendívil in Vienna. His research focus includes urban-, Afro-Caribbean music; music and the Caribbean diasporas; intersectional approaches to music and race, class, gender, and nation in the Caribbean; pedagogical research approaches in ethnomusicology; participatory research methods; and postcolonial ethnomusicology. He is a founding member and Co-Chair since 2020 of the ICTMD Study Group Music and Dance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since his affiliation with the ICTMD 2017, his goal has been to bring together scholars and practitioners to collaborate on founding a language and geographically-based network of scholarship in Latin America and the Caribbean area. His aim is to achieve greater visibility within the ICTMD of research from Latin America and the Caribbean while providing more possibilities for collaboration on topics such as social inclusion, self-representation of underrepresented groups, and direct participation of communities in the knowledge production processes. He is also part of the ICTMD study groups on Music and Minorities, Music, Gender and Sexuality, Musical Education and Social Inclusion, and Applied Ethnomusicology.

Magda Pucci (b.1964) is a Brazilian musician  – arranger, composer, and singer – and an independent researcher about musics of the world and Brazilian indigenous cultures. She graduated in Music (Conducting) at the University of São Paulo. She has a Master in Anthropology at PUC-SP and a Ph.D. in Artistic Research at Leiden University in the Netherlands. As the musical director and founder of Mawaca – a São Paulo-based musical group – she produced eight CDs and four DVDs and toured to more than 8 countries and within Brazil. The group was awarded the Music Professional Prize in 2017,  2019 and 2020. She is author of books related to indigenous subjects and music education and works as a music educator giving music workshops. Magda is an invited teacher in post graduation and extension courses at Brazilian universities. She developed  musical projects in collaboration with indigenous communities such as Kayapó, Guarani Kaiowa, Huni-Kuin, Paiter Suruí, and others. She also worked in social projects with children from ONGs and directed a group of refugees based in São Paulo. She has published articles at Música Popular, Vibrant, ABEM journals. Her interests include cultural musicology, Amazonian indigenous music, world music pedagogy, applied or participatory ethnomusicology, community music, artistic research, performance, indigenous anthropology. She has been an ICTMD member since 2013.

Jessie M. Vallejo, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director of Mariachi Ensembles at Cal Poly Pomona. Her research focuses on musical cultural-linguistic revitalization projects, mariachi music, and grief, and her work has been published with the Smithsonian Folklife Magazine, Smithsonian Folkways, Ethnomusicology Forum and Sonocordia journals; she also contributed to The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook vol.2. Jessie has been a member of ICTMD since 2011 and she is a founding member of ICTMD's Study Group for Music and Dance in Latin America and the Caribbean; she is a co-editor of the online, open-access WorldMusicTextbook.org collaborative project; and she is an active freelance violinist in Southern California.

Lucilene Silva is Brazilian, has a master's degree and is currently completing her doctorate at the State University of Campinas - Unicamp - SP. She is a researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology of the University of Lisbon - INET-md, and she is also work on FAPESP's musical project "Local Music: New Paths for Ethnomusicology," coordinated by ethnomusicologist Suzel Reily. Her research contemplates childhood music and the music of Brazilian popular manifestations. She is the author of books, records, videos, and articles related to the subject. In 2015, Lucilene received the Intangible Heritage Safeguard Award from the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage. As a singer, she develops artistic works based on childhood music and popular Brazilian music. She coordinates the Center for Studies and Diffusion of Children's Culture and the Training Center for Educators at the Cultural School, a project developed in an immigrant community in Greater São Paulo. Silva is part of the Casa das 5 Pedrinhas team, founded by the ethnomusicologist Lydia Hortélio. She also teaches music to children and adolescents, and she has extensive experience in teacher training.

Beatriz Herrera, MA, is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. Her training in Anthropology at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and in the Choreomundus - International Master program in knowledge, practice and heritage of dance, which has her work on local dance practices in Guatemala. Likewise, Beatriz is a contemporary dancer and contingent professor of art history at the Francisco Marroquín University. She has participated in several co-authored publications with Latin American researchers. For three years she was in charge of coordinating the webinar MULTÍLOGOS: Danzas, cuerpos y movimientos, a space for the dissemination of knowledge about dance research and creation, as well as discussions between different profiles of Spanish-speaking dance professionals. At ICTMD she is the liaison officer for Guatemala, member of the Committee for the Name of the Council, the Translation Committee, the ICTMD Dialogues Committee, and the Program Committee for the 2023 World Conference.

As coordinator of the webinar MULTÍLOGOS and chair of the Choreomundus Alumni Association, Beatriz has extensive experience in managing remote virtual communications, use of social networks, and event planning. Likewise, she is part of an international network of contacts of researchers on dance and corporalities. Beatriz has a strong experience in the challenges of international teamwork, she is bilingual in English and Spanish, and looks forward to enriching the growth of the ICTMD LAT CAR study group.

Jacob Rekedal holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Riverside (USA) and is currently an assistant professor at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Santiago, Chile). He has conducted research in the United States and Chile, with support from the UC Pacific Rim Research Program, Fulbright, the Chilean Ministry of Culture, Arts and Patrimony, and the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development. He is currently carrying out a project on hip hop and its role in Mapuche culture during the last three decades. His articles appear in journals of ethnomusicology, musicology, and Latin American studies. Jacob compiled and edited the book Etnomusicología redefinida: traducciones para el siglo XXI (2022), and serves as assistant director of the journal Contrapulso.

Between 2015 and 2020, Jacob was ICTMD’s Chile Liaison Officer, and in 2019 he helped to start the Chilean National Committee of ICTMD, of which he served as its first president. Jacob also helped to start and manage the ictmlatinamericaribe@ictmusic.org list as of 2015 and, more recently, has served as a member of the Translation Committee and Latin America Outreach Committee, both of ICTMD. In 2022, Jacob chaired the scientific committee and coordinated local programming for the Chilean part of the joint meeting between ICTMD’s Applied Ethnomusicology and LAT CAR Study Groups. Currently, Jacob offers his support as part of the incoming LAT CAR board of directors, to assist in the planning of future Study Group meetings, among other initiatives.

Nora Bammer studied ethnomusicology, Spanish and anthropology at the University of Vienna, Austria and in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She currently works as a research and teaching fellow at the University of Vienna with her PhD research developing around the conceptualization and contextualization of Shuar songs and singing in the Ecuadorian Amazon basin (supervisor: Julio Mendívil). Further research interests are the ethnomusicology of Amazonia, Indigenous ontologies, Postcolonial and Decolonizing theory, and Gender Studies. She has presented and published internationally has been part of ICTMD in various Study Groups since 2012. Nora is a founding board member of the Study Group for Music and Dance in Latin America and the Caribbean – LAT CAR since 2017. 

In collaboration with Javier Silvestrini, Nora has been co-chair since 2020 and responsible for networking and communication between the Study Group and the respective ICTMD leadership, the Outreach Committee for Latin America, the national representatives, as well as the local organizing committees for the Study Group meetings in Salto, Tuxtla, and Santiago/Rio. If elected again, Nora is looking forward to co-planning and co-organizing the next Study Group meeting in Cuba, to facilitating access and participation of interested members, and to concentrating on networks in and for LAT CAR. She is motivated by a collaborative, non-hierarchical work approach within and beyond the board-team. Her goal is to creating additional spaces for ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological research exchange in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nora will continuously reach out to interested colleagues and their experiences in order to further enhance representation, continuation and support of LAT CAR within the international ICTMD network.