- Ph.D., Indiana University, 1997
- M.A., Indiana University, 1993
- B.M., Ball State, 1988
Alan Burdette
Executive Director, Society for Ethnomusicology
Assistant Research Scholar, Folklore & Ethnomusicology
he/him
- semexec@iu.edu
- 800 E. 3rd St., 211
- Office Hours
Education
Alan Burdette is the Executive Director of the Society for Ethnomusicology, an academic society for ethnomusicologists around the world, based at Indiana University. In this capacity he is responsible for the day to day operations of the organization, the support of members, conference planning, and the implementation of its mission.
He previously served as the Director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University from 2007 - 2023. The Archives is one of the largest ethnographic media collections in the United States with international collections of recordings and documentation from 1893 to the present. In that capacity he was part of the team that instigated and developed the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI), a ground-breaking Indiana University effort that digitally preserved more than 350,000 audio, video, and film recordings, including 90,000 recordings from the ATM. He has also served on the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress since 2010, providing content and historical expertise for the annual selection of the National Recording Registry.
He has co-authored and co-led several significant projects including NEH-funded grants to digitally preserve ATM’s cylinder collections, the Sound Directions project for audio preservation, and the AHEYM Project for Yiddish oral history video recordings. He led the Mellon-funded EVIA Digital Archive Project for 9 years and helped develop the Ethnomusicology Multimedia Project. He was also one of the first Associate Directors for Indiana University’s Institute for Digital Humanities where he helped scholars from a variety of disciplines develop digital projects related to their research. During this time he worked collaboratively to create use cases for software development and their subsequent evaluation. These included software for media annotation, media content search and playback, controlled vocabulary deployment, peer-review of media content, archival processing, and preservation workflows.
He served as the first Executive Director of the Society for Ethnomusicology from 2000 - 2007 during which time he helped grow its membership and double conference attendance. As an instructor in the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Department since 1997, he has taught courses in American vernacular musics, world music, American folklore, Indiana folklore, transcription and analysis, and the history of ideas in ethnomusicology.
His research interests include media archiving, digital humanities, and American vernacular musics. His dissertation on a German American singing society in southern Indiana used the insights of performance studies to demonstrate practices of traditionalization, and examine the cultivation of community and heightened experience. He looks at American vernacular musics and social dance musics as a window into cultural revival, community building, and regional identity.
He is also an avid photographer whose photographs have appeared in numerous publications and institutional websites and online campaigns.
He previously served as the Director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University from 2007 - 2023. The Archives is one of the largest ethnographic media collections in the United States with international collections of recordings and documentation from 1893 to the present. In that capacity he was part of the team that instigated and developed the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI), a ground-breaking Indiana University effort that digitally preserved more than 350,000 audio, video, and film recordings, including 90,000 recordings from the ATM. He has also served on the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress since 2010, providing content and historical expertise for the annual selection of the National Recording Registry.
He has co-authored and co-led several significant projects including NEH-funded grants to digitally preserve ATM’s cylinder collections, the Sound Directions project for audio preservation, and the AHEYM Project for Yiddish oral history video recordings. He led the Mellon-funded EVIA Digital Archive Project for 9 years and helped develop the Ethnomusicology Multimedia Project. He was also one of the first Associate Directors for Indiana University’s Institute for Digital Humanities where he helped scholars from a variety of disciplines develop digital projects related to their research. During this time he worked collaboratively to create use cases for software development and their subsequent evaluation. These included software for media annotation, media content search and playback, controlled vocabulary deployment, peer-review of media content, archival processing, and preservation workflows.
He served as the first Executive Director of the Society for Ethnomusicology from 2000 - 2007 during which time he helped grow its membership and double conference attendance. As an instructor in the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Department since 1997, he has taught courses in American vernacular musics, world music, American folklore, Indiana folklore, transcription and analysis, and the history of ideas in ethnomusicology.
His research interests include media archiving, digital humanities, and American vernacular musics. His dissertation on a German American singing society in southern Indiana used the insights of performance studies to demonstrate practices of traditionalization, and examine the cultivation of community and heightened experience. He looks at American vernacular musics and social dance musics as a window into cultural revival, community building, and regional identity.
He is also an avid photographer whose photographs have appeared in numerous publications and institutional websites and online campaigns.
Research Interests
- Media archiving
- digital humanities
- American vernacular musics
The College of Arts