Post, Jennifer C.

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Post, Jennifer C.

(Jennifer Post Quinn)

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended Eastman School of Music and Beloit College; Pune University, B.A., 1972; University of Minnesota, Ph.D., 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Musical Instrument Museum, 8550 S. Priest Dr., Tempe, AZ 85284. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, scholar, and educator. Musical Instrument Museum, Tempe, AZ, associate curator of musical instruments. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT, former curator of the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection and of the Ethnomusicology Archives, and former assistant professor of music.

WRITINGS:

An Index to the Field Recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT), 1983.

Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life, 1870-1940, University Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 2004.

Ethnomusicology: A Guide to Research, Routledge (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor) Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, Routledge (New York, NY), 2006.

Also series editor for two music series for Routledge Press.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jennifer C. Post attended the Eastman School of Music, Beloit College, and Pune University in India while studying musical composition and ethnomusicology, receiving her B.A. in music in 1972. She also attended the University if Minnesota where she received her Ph.D. in 1982. Her research includes study in the fields of South Asian music and language, New England musical traditions, ethnomusicology, and, most recently, in Inner Asia. At Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont, she has served as curator of the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection and the Ethnomusicology Archives, and as an assistant professor of music. She is currently the Associate Curator of Musical Instruments at the Musical Instrument Museum in Tempe, Arizona.

Post published An Index to the Field Recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, in 1983. This reference text contains detailed information about the field recordings at Middlebury College, such as the proper and collective titles, performers, and locations, of over 4,066 folk songs, ballads, and other musical works dated between 1930 and 1958. Post's Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life, 1870-1940, published in 2004 by the University Press of New England, seeks to provide an account of the colloquial music present in northern New England before the advent and popularity of broadcast radio and other broadcast and recording devices that eventually made these forms of musical expression extinct. Notes contributor Andrew R. Gatto commented that the text "is a milestone in the literature on America's far northeastern corner" and that it addresses "the need for a historical overview of the region's vernacular music and dance traditions." Gatto also noted that, "befitting a true ethnography, Post supplements her musical analysis with commentary on the two generations of people who made this music during the period under consideration," and she supplies "snapshots of both individual and collective sentiment concerning the role music and dance, as forms of entertainment and communication, played in a society that was one of the last to be touched by mainstream media." Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life, 1870-1940 underscores the rich musical traditions present during this time in American history, and, as Gatto stated, "Post's scholarship is most effective when it exposes the connections between individual and community music making, revealing the self-sufficiency that has long defined the region's residents." Post also acknowledges her predecessors who compiled the information that she recurrently uses in her scholarly assessments.

Post's Ethnomusicology: A Guide to Research, published in 2004, functions as an expansive reference text for the field of ethnomusicology. According to reviewer Alec McLane in a Notes essay, "Post extends her coverage to encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, indexes, journal titles, sound recordings, and film" and not only incorporates "the related disciplines of anthropology, folklore, and cultural studies, but also gender studies, philosophy, popular culture, and religion." The guide features detailed information on multimedia materials, record label contacts, scholarly journals, and other reference materials pertaining to music. McLane also added: "This research guide is indispensable for an academic library at any institution with an ethnomusicology or world music program, or for that matter, any library." Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, published in 2006, serves as an academic resource as well as a classroom or study supplement. In a compilation of scholarly essays, the text includes diverse commentaries on modern media, technology, culture, globalization, and gender politics. "Issues such as musical ownership, authenticity, identity, and musical change are ideas students are capable of considering, and music teachers may find their own understandings improved by reading this book," reported Stephanie Christensen for the Music Educators Journal. Moreover, as an enhancement to study, the content provides direction in the methods used in the field and the types of questions and concerns that scholars frequently revisit.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, July 1, 2005, R.D. Cohen, review of Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life, 1870-1940, p. 1997.

Music Educators Journal, January 1, 2007, Stephanie Christensen, review of Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, p. 18.

New England Quarterly, March 1, 2006, Burt Feintuch, review of Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life, 1870-1940, p. 150.

Notes, December 1, 2005, Andrew R. Gatto, review of Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life, 1870-1940, p. 369; March 1, 2006, Alec McLane, review of Ethnomusicology: A Guide to Research, p. 708.