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The Robert E. Brown Center for World Music, a unit of the University of Illinois School of Music, is a nonprofit organization promoting understanding and appreciation of the world's performing arts, primarily through active study of their performance. The Center was established after the School of Music received a significant gift from the estate of Robert E. Brown, the ethnomusicologist credited with coining the phrase "world music." The gift to the University, announced in 2006, included Brown's extensive collection of instruments from around the world, among them complete Balinese and Javanese gamelan orchestras. Also in the gift was Brown's large library of recordings and books, as well as paintings and museum-quality artifacts from his private collection.
The Center's official opening took place in April 2008 with an international symposium on
Between 2008 and 2009 the Center engaged three more artist-teachers: a renowned djembe master, Moussa Bolokada Conde, to teach the percussion music of the Mande people of Guinea (West Africa); Priscilla Tse, a graduate of the Chinese Music Conservatory in Beijing, to teach Chinese instruments; and the tabla virtuoso, Subrata Bhattacharya, from Calcutta. These artists continued to teach for the Center through 2010. In December 2011 the Center was moved from its temporary Levis Hall location to the School of Music, and its director, Philip Yampolsky, stepped down as its full-time administrator.
This Collection is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
Transfer
Arranged alphabetically by publication type.
Consists of event programs, brochures, calendars, broadsides, and news articles documenting the creation of the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music and its diverse education and public engagement programming between 2007 and 2011.