ABOUT THIS BOOK

Exploring and celebrating individual lives in diverse situations, Women Singers in Global Contexts is a new departure in the study of women's worldwide music-making. Ten unique women constitute the heart of this volume: each one has engaged her singing voice as a central element in her life, experiencing various opportunities, tensions, and choices through her vocality. These biographical and poetic narratives demonstrate how the act of vocalizing embodies dynamics of representation, power, agency, activism, and risk-taking.

Engaging with performance practice, politics, and constructions of gender through vocality and vocal aesthetics, this collection offers valuable insights into the experiences of specific women singers in a range of sociocultural contexts. Contributors trace themes and threads that include childhood, families, motherhood, migration, fame, training, transmission, technology, and the interface of private lives and public identities.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ruth Hellier is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology at University of California Santa Barbara, where she also teaches performance studies and theater.

REVIEWS

"An ambitious collection of essays on women singers by leading scholars in ethnomusicology and related fields. The volume will be welcomed by students of a variety of disciplines including ethnomusicology and women's studies."--Anne K. Rasmussen, author of Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia

"An intellectually stimulating overview of how such musicians manage dynamically to present themselves with their own cultures. Highly recommended."--Choice

"Each chapter engages with multiple contexts, demonstrating the ways in which women from various backgrounds mediate performance and gendered expectations inside and outside their home communities... Impactful intersections of different identity categories--gender, class, profession, or avocation ("singer"), location, age, sexuality, education, race, and marital and familial status--emerge as central to the work"--Ethnomusicology

"The first ethnographic collection to focus on individual female singers. . . . The range of the essays is impressive, featuring women of different generations from five continents. . . . this volume will be valuable to scholars interested in a variety of aspects related to biography and performance."--Journal of Singing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

The Companion Website

Introduction. Vocal Herstories: Resonances of Singing, Individuals, and Authors Ruth Hellier

1. Akiko Fujii: Telling the Musical Life Stories of a Hereditary Jiuta Singer of Japan Shino Arisawa

2. Amelia Pedroso: The Voice of a Cuban Priestess Leading from the Inside Amanda Villepastour

3. Ayben:"The Girl's Voice in Turkish Rap" Thomas Solomon

4. Ixya Herrera: Gracefully Nurturing "Mexico" with Song in the U.S.A. Ruth Hellier

5. Kyriakou Pelagia: The Housewife/Grandmother-Star of Cyprus Nicoletta Demetriou

6. Lexine Solomon: Songs of Connection and Celebration by a Torres Strait Islander Katelyn Barney

7. Marysia's Voice: Defining Home through Song in Poland and Canada Louise Wrazen

8. Sathima Bea Benjamin: Musical Echoes and the Poetics of a South African-American Musical Self Car

9. Sima's Choices: Negotiating Repertoires and Identities in Contemporary Iran Gay Breyley

10. Zainab Herawi: Finding Acclaim in the Conservative Islamic Culture of Afghanistan Veronica Doubl

Afterword Ellen Koskoff

Appendix

Contributors

Index