Anthony Seeger

My early research centered on the relationship between cosmology, social organization and music among the Suya/Kisedje Indians of Mato Grosso, Brazil.  I later became an audiovisual archivist and served as Director of the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music and wrote about issues of collection, preservation, and access of audiovisual recordings.  After that I served as Curator and founding director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings at the Smithsonian Institution and began to write about issues of copyright and music control.  I moved on to UCLA to teach Ethnomusicology and continued to write about ethnomusicology, audiovisual archiving, and Brazilian Indigenous peoples.Since retiring from teaching, much of my research has focused on issues of intellectual property and other forms of control over music, on intangible cultural heritage, and on audiovisual archiving.  I continue to publish on lowland South American Indigenous societies and their music. I have served as executive producer of around 250 CDs, recorded a video course, and appear on the Internet discussing music.  I have played the 5-string banjo since I was about 10 years old, and perform with family members.