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The faculty of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music plays an active role in Latin American music studies. Dr. Emma Garmendia and Dr. Robert Stevenson have been the professors of courses on Latin American music. Dr. Garmendia has been named Director Emerita of the Center. Dr. Stevenson serves as Director of Doctoral Dissertations and Professor Emeritus. Dr. Grayson Wagstaff joined the faculty as director of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music in 2002 and has taught courses in the LAMC these past four years.
Upon her retirement in May 1999, Dr. Emma Garmendia has been honored with the title of Director Emerita of the Latin American Music Center at CUA. Dr. Garmendia was recently appointed to the editorial committee for Música e Investigación, a journal of music and research published by the Instituto Nacional de Musicología "Carlos Vega" in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Garmendia is also on the International Board of Consultants for the publication Debates, a journal on musicology, music theory, analysis, and performing practices, recently inaugurated by the Mestrado em Música Brasileira of the University of Rio de Janeiro. She recently participated in the pre-Columbian Music Workshop at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. The workshop, arranged by the Pre-Columbian Studies Department, Jeffrey Quilter, Director, included a presentation by musicologist Dr. Robert Stevenson of UCLA. Dr. Garmendia is currently working on a book of twelve essays on Latin American music. Dr. Garmendia will be coordinator of a "Celebration of Latin American Music," a special event to take place as part of the Amalfi Coast Music Festival and Institute, June 27-July 8, 2000, in Vietri sul Mare, Italy.
Dr. Stevenson's recent activities include two articles for Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart Sachteil and entries in The New Grove on Juan Navarro (d.1580) and Tomás Luis de Victoria. In May 1998 he was invited to give a lecture at Oxford University during a Symposium sponsored by the Tureck Bach Foundation. The subject of the Symposium was "Authenticity," and Dr. Stevenson's specific topic was "Challenges to Friends of Authenticity." He was also invited to Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. to speak on "Pre-Columbian Music: Present-Day Research Imperatives" during the Pre-Columbian Workshop, April 18-19, 1998. Dr. Stevenson has been honored with the Cátedra Robert Stevenson de Musicología at the Real Conservatorio Superior at Madrid and was awarded the Third Gold Medal by the Conservatorio. In addition, he is the first recipient of the newly established Cátedra Jesús C. Romero de Musicología established at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He was the U.S. representative at the Tercero Encuentro Internacional de Musicología held in Caracas, Venezuela in October 1997, and in July of 1997 was the Keynote Speaker at the First International Black Music Congress held in Chicago. Dr. Robert Stevenson was the first to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed by the Sonneck Society for American Music, which was presented to him in a plenary session at the 25th Annual Meeting of the Sonneck Society, March 10-14, 1999. As a participant at the Coloquio Internacional: Centenario de Carlos Chávez y Silvestre Revueltas, held in Mexico September 7-11, 1999, he presented a lecture on the presence of Chávez and Revueltas in international encyclopedias. In May 2000, he was invited to Oxford University to present a lecture at a symposium sponsored by the Tureck Bach Research Foundation entitled, "Embellishment, the Art of Glossing 16th Century Polyphony." He was recently commissioned to write new articles for a revision of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Dr. Stevenson's presentation at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society in Atlanta, Georgia was entitled, "Peruvian Musical Priorities Culminating in La Purpura de la Rosa (1701)." At that annual meeting, Dr. Stevenson received recognition as an Honorary Member of the AMS. The citation read: "Professor Stevenson: Extraordinarily prolific and wide-ranging in your research, you have since the 1950s been pre-eminent in the now fast-growing field of Latin American musicology. Your work not only illuminates little-known histories and repertories, but spans a broad variety of indigenous, colonial, post-colonial, and European musics. As such, it has influenced generations of scholars, and stands today as a model of scholarly vision and interdisciplinarity."
(Prof. Jessie Ann Owens, President of the AMS)
Dr. Grayson Wagstaff
Director of the LAMC
Dr. Wagstaff (Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, 1995; BM, James Madison University, 1986) musicologist, specializes in Late Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music in Spain and Colonial Mexico. His scholarly interests center on sacred music, specifically Requiem traditions, Marian devotions, and regional liturgical chant repertories. His recent work includes a study of Josquin’s influence on Spanish music in the 16th century. In addition to such scholarly journals as The Musical Quarterly, Journal of the Royal Music Association, Notes, Heterofonía, and Inter-American Music Review, he is a contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians II, The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, and The Reader's Guide to Music: History, Theory and Criticism. Dr. Wagstaff is a frequent speaker at international musicological conferences such as the International Musicological Society, the American Musicological Society, and Feminist Theory and Music 4. He has also presented his work at interdisciplinary conferences/symposia sponsored by The Rutger's Center for Historical Analysis, the American Historical Association, The University of Pittsburgh Colloquium in Social History, and the Society for Spanish and Portuguese History. He was a featured speaker at the Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical (CENIDIM), Mexico City. Dr. Wagstaff coordinated a seminar on music in the American South. He is active in arts education in the Washington area.
In 2004 Dr. Wagstaff taught a class entitled, the Music of Mexico, which was part of the Latin American Regional Studies series offered at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music. This course examined music in Mexico since the sixteenth century and presented an overview of pre-Columbian traditions. The music that was covered included surviving indigenous music up through music of twentieth-century Mexico. Institutions and aspects of culture affecting music were highlighted. Dr. Wagstaff was a co-chair of a Study Session: Music, Beliefs, Politics, and Patronage in the Hispanic Orbit at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society in Atlanta, November 15-18, 2001. Dr. Wagstaff joined the staff of the LAMC in 2000 and was appointed Director in September 2002.
Dr. Esperanza Berrocal
Esperanza Berrocal holds a Ph.D. in Musicology (Catholic University of America 2002) and a Piano Performance Degree (Madrid Conservatory 1991). She has been an adjunct professor of musicology at CUA since 2004. As a specialist in Ibero-American music and native Spanish speaker she has produced 6 volumes for the Retrospective Index of Music Periodicals bibliographical series (RIPM): La Música Ilustrada Hispano-Americana (1 vol.), La Gaceta Musical Barcelonesa (2 vols.), Revista y Gaceta Musical (1 vol.), La Zarzuela and La Espa a Artística (2 vols.). She is currently coordinator of the RIPM-series in Latin America (www.ripm.org). Other scholarly interests include the history of piano concert programming and opera. She is the correspondent for the Barcelona-based magazine Ópera Actual. She has contributed articles for the New Grove Encyclopedia of Music, Revista Resonancias (Universidad Católica de Chile), liner notes for CDs and concerts programs. Her upcoming publications include a chapter in a monograph dedicated to the Spanish pianist Ricardo Vies (Barcelona, Fundació Caixa Catalunya, Septemebr 2007) and the Revista Musical de México, 1919-1920 for the RIPM series (July 2007).