Associate Professor of Music

Ethnomusicology, music of Bali

I am an Associate Professor of Music at Wake Forest University (WFU) specializing in ethnomusicology and an affiliate faculty member at the North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). A graduate of Florida State University (Ph.D. 2013, M.M. 2009) and The University of Chicago (B.A. 2007), I was previously Visiting Instructor in Ethnomusicology and Director of World Music at Emory University (2013-2014). At Wake Forest, I teach courses in world, Asian, and popular music and direct the Balinese gamelan, Gamelan Giri Murti. I embrace my role as a teacher-scholar through incorporating my research into my teaching and providing hands-on opportunities for my students to experience music and culture.

My research addresses concepts of space, time, cultural representation, and pedagogy within transnational Asian performing arts communities (with a focus on Balinese gamelan) and in film and television music. My writing has appeared in various journals and edited volumes, including in Musicultures and Ethnomusicology. My first book, American Gamelan and the Ethnomusicological Imagination (University of Illinois Press, 2020), takes a critical look at American collegiate world music ensemble education through the lens of transnational Balinese gamelan communities. I am also co-author (with Henry Spiller) of Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2022).

I have previously served as co-chair for the Society for Ethnomusicology Section on the Status of Women (2013-2016), am past president of the Southeast and Caribbean Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2015-2016), and served on the Society for Ethnomusicology Council (2019-2022).

I am also currently Interim Associate Chair of the Department of Music (2022-23).

Elizabeth Clendinning Headshot