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Tullia Magrini: page two |
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I was devastated to hear of Tullia’s passing a few weeks
ago. Her husband Loris Azzaronni sent me an e-mail two days later,
writing movingly about his last hours with her. I had known her for some
sixteen years—meeting first at the ICTM conference in Schladming,
Austria—and
associated with her in various contexts. And so I will miss her as a
colleague and friend. Tullia’s career was cut short early and wasn’t very long, but she leaves an important mark in international ethnomusicology, as a researcher and teacher with important contributions to the understanding of the Maggio and of other ceremonies—but also in asserting leadership in important areas. Let me mention three. One was her interest in developing studies of the Mediterranean area which showed this region to have important commonalities and Italy and Greece (her main field venues) relating in all directions. I remember with gratitude the meetings of the ICTM study group on the Mediterranean area, which she organized in the marvelous venue of custody Venice, and for which she was able to elicit the sponsorship and hospitality of the Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation in its palace just across the Grand Canal from the Accademia museum. And in this context, I’ve got to mention her edited book, Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean. But further, Tullia, among Italian scholars, was perhaps the most active in establishing and maintaining contact with ethnomusicologists throughout Europe and North America. She did a great deal, in publishing translations from English, French, and Spanish, to increase the accessibility of a body of literature to Italian students, and by the same token, publishing some of her work in English, she introduced Italian scholarship and subject matter abroad. And third, she understood the usefulness of modern technology in scholarly communication, by establishing the electronic journal Music and Anthropology, of course, but by trying to lead in more traditional contexts. When I was editor of Ethnomusicology from 1999 to 2002, I suggested—with fear and trepidation, being a committed Luddite—that materials supplementary to printed articles, such as musical examples, and film clips, could be posted on the SEM web site. I expected a rush of offers from interested authors, but actually, in the course of my term only Tullia, in “Manhood and Music in Western Crete” (EM 44:429-58, 2000), took advantage of this technological “great leap forward.” Tullia was an enormously energetic, creative, and innovative
person. We will all miss her very much. (Bruno Nettl) |
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| It began with Tullia being energetically interested in my work on early modern Venice, and ended in a warm and enriching friendship that developed and deepened over the years. Along the way there were fairly frequent opportunities to exchange ideas and thoughts, particularly about music in urban contexts whether historical or contemporary, and about the galaxy of problems surrounding the task of conducting anthropological research in the past. For those of us trained as traditional historical musicologists, but sadly ignorant of contingent fields of enquiry, the broadening of perspective which Tullia's passionate advocacy and infectious enthusiasm for the anthropological point of view brought to the project of writing and thinking about music history was inspiring. I shall miss her very much. (Iain Fenlon) | |
