Anne Rasmussen (educator)
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Anne K. Rasmussen (born 1959) is an American educator and ethnomusicologist. Rasmussen is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Bickers Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary where she also directs the William & Mary Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (Est 1994). She has repeatedly been recognized for faculty excellence and is known for the interdisciplinary, experiential learning programs she has designed for students in Oman and Morocco, as well as for her semester-long program "Washington and the Arts" taught on various occasions at William & Mary's Washington Campus, as well as for the international cohort of musicians and scholars with whom she regularly collaborates.
Rasmussen received her B.A. from Northwestern University, her M.A. from the University of Denver, and her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles.[1] During her graduate training Rasmussen studied with A. J. Racy, Timothy Rice, Nazir Jairazbhoy, and began focussed studies of Arab music performance with Scott Marcus. Her studies at the New England Conservatory and the University of the Sorbonne in Paris were significant and influential on her career path.[2] Her first ethnographic and historical research on music and community in Arab America led to a career-long investment in the studying, teaching, performing, programming, and advocating for the music of a broadly Multicultural America. Her subsequent research and award-winning publications encompass music of the Middle East and Muslim worlds, with a focus on Indonesia and the Indian Ocean region, and music in a multicultural United States, with a focus on Arab America.
Career
Anne K. Rasmussen has authored and co-edited five books and written articles appearing in many journals, including Ethnomusicology, Asian Music, Popular Music, American Music, The World of Music, The Garland Encyclopaedia of World Music, and the Harvard Dictionary of Music. She produced four CD recordings documenting immigrant and community music in the United States. She is the recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships for research in Indonesia, a Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center Fellowship for research in Oman, and a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and a grant from the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, she has also served as President of the Society for Ethnomusicology.[3]
Rasmussen has been teaching courses in ethnomusicology at The College of William & Mary since 1993,[1] where she also directs with Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, founded in 1994.[2]
Rasmussen has hosted numerous artists and scholars on tour in the US and at her home institution, the College of William & Mary. She accompanied Indonesian Qur'an reciter Maria Ulfah, a primary collaborator in Indonesia, during Ulfa's 1999 tour of the United States under the auspices of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and again in 2016 with the sponsorship of the Embassy of Indonesia and the Smithsonian Institution[4] In 2010 and 2011, she was hosted by the government of Oman and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center for her musicology research there. She continues ties to the Sultanate of Oman and has co-directed numerous student study-abroad tours to the country. Since 1994, the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble that she directs at William & Mary has hosted visiting guest artists and scholars from the Arab World, the Middle East Region and Asia on a regular basis.[1]
