Senior Research Scientist Ann-Perry Witmer and Associate Professor of Horn Bernhard Scully traveled to Bolivia together in early March 2022 to evaluate the relationship of Western traditions of music and technology when compared with indigenous practices and beliefs. They spent a week in the Altiplano region of Bolivia, populated by Incan descendants of the Aymara sect, staying in five separate rural communities while exploring water infrastructure, playing music, and re-evaluating how Western standards of quality and performance in both music and technology may not apply for different societal identities. The analogies between music and technology provide particular insight into the way Westerners apply their knowledge – often inappropriately – to non-industrialized societies and allow for a new appreciation of the creative and effective knowledges that reside outside the Western world.
Ann Witmer is the lead of the Contextual Innovation and Practice research group at the Illinois Applied Research Institute as well as a lecturer in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, where she heads the Contextual Engineering Research Group.
International horn soloist, Bernhard Scully, is currently the Associate Professor of horn at the University of Illinois. During the summer he is the Artistic Director of Cormont Music, the Kendall Betts Horn Camp, and a member of the North Country Chamber Players. He was the long-time horn player of the Canadian Brass and former principal horn of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Thanks to Chancellor’s Scholar Alejandro Pulido for proposing this topic for an SAS.
**This program will be limited to 25 participants.**
