Brian Diettrich

Programme Leader – Music Studies
Ethnomusicology

BA Bald Wall Conserv, MA PhD UHM

Brian Diettrich is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the New Zealand School of Music. He teaches courses in critical approaches to ethnomusicology and ethnographic research, as well as studies of regional music cultures (especially Oceania). Brian also coordinates the ethnomusicology programme at NZSM and supervises graduate research projects.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Brian received a BM in Theory and Composition from Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, and both the MA and PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Brian’s research focuses on the music cultures of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), where he has undertaken projects since 2000 in the Micronesian States of Chuuk and Pohnpei, and among Micronesian migrant communities residing in Hawai‘i. Brian was awarded a Field Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research in 2006 for his doctoral study of music and colonial transformations in Chuuk. Brian is active in various collaborative and educational community projects in Micronesia, and he formerly taught music at the tertiary level in the FSM, at both the Chuuk State and FSM National Campuses of the College of Micronesia-FSM.   

Brian’s scholarship and research interests target interfaces of colonialism and postcolonial theory, agency and power relationships in the performing arts, as well as issues of authenticity, cultural transformation, missionisation, and transnationalism. He is a co-author of Music in Pacific Island Cultures (OUP 2011), and his articles and reviews have appeared in the Yearbook for Traditional Music, the Galpin Society Journal, World of Music, The Contemporary Pacific, and Research in Anthropology and Linguistics. Brian has presented his research at international conferences and symposia in the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Pacific. His current projects include a study of musical sustainability in the FSM and a book on musical life in Chuuk. Brian is an active member of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), the ICTM Study Group on the Music and Dance of Oceania, and the New Zealand Musicological Society. He also sits on the Board of Rekii Chuuk, a private educational Institution in Chuuk.

Recent Publications:
Diettrich, Brian, Jane Freeman Moulin, and Michael Webb. 2011. Music In Pacific Island Cultures: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. Book and CD.  Global Music Series, edited by Bonnie Wade and Patricia Campbell.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Diettrich, Brian. 2011. Voices from ‘Under-the-Garland’: Singing, Christianity, and Cultural Transformations in Chuuk, Micronesia. Yearbook for Traditional Music 43:62-88.

Diettrich, Brian. 2011. ‘Keeper-of-the-Drum’: Silent Objects and Musical Pasts of Pohnpei, Micronesia. The Galpin Society Journal LXIV:219-242. 

Diettrich, Brian. 2009. “Musik und die Inselumwelt in Mikronesien (Music and the Island World of Micronesia).” In Südsee Oasen: Leben und Überleben im Westpazifik, edited and German translation by Ingrid Hermann, pp.135-37. Linden-Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.   

Diettrich, Brian. 2007. ‘Across All Micronesia’ and Beyond: Innovation and Connections in Chuukese Popular Music and Contemporary Recordings.  The World of Music 49(1):65-81.

Diettrich, Brian. 2007. Listening Encounters: Sound Recordings and Cultural Meaning from Chuuk State, Micronesia. In Oceanic Music Encounters: Essays in Honour of Mervyn McLean, ed. by Richard Moyle, pp. 47-58. University of Auckland, Department of Anthropology.

Contact details:
phone: +64 4 463 5863
room: 201, 92 Fairlie Terrace, Kelburn Campus
email: brian.diettrich@nzsm.ac.nz

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