J. Lawrence Witzleben

Years of Service: 2007–2023
Fields of Expertise: Ethnomusicology

Bio: J. Lawrence ("Larry") Witzleben is Professor Emeritus of ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, where he designed the Music and Culture Minor program and served as Coordinator of the Asian/World Music Ensembles. Previously, he taught ethnomusicology and Chinese music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for nearly two decades, where he also directed the Chinese ensemble and Javanese gamelan. He studied ethnomusicology at the Universities of Hawaiʻi (M.A.) and Pittsburgh (Ph.D) and Chinese music theory and performance at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He is the author of "Silk and Bamboo Music in Shanghai: The Jiangnan Sizhu Instrumental Ensemble Tradition" (Kent State, 1995), the recipient of the 1996 Alan Merriam Prize and a co-editor (with Robert C. Provine and Yosihiko Tokumaru) of the East Asia volume of the "Garland Encyclopedia of World Music" (2002). Witzleben's other notable publications include "Whose Ethnomusicology? Western Ethnomusicology and the Study of Asian Music" (Ethnomusicology 41, 1999), "Performing in the Shadows: Learning and Making Music as Ethnomusicological Practice and Theory" (Yearbook for Traditional Music 42, 2010) and "Plucked Lutes of the Silk Road: The Interaction of Theory and Practice from Antiquity to Contemporary Performance" (Shanghai Conservatory Press, 2019), which he co-edited with Xiao Mei. His current research centers on performance practice in Chinese Music in Hong Kong, and his other interests include music of Southeast Asia, music and film, popular music and jazz, and the reception and transformation of ethnomusicology in Asia and elsewhere. Witzleben has been a member of the Society for Ethnomusicologyʻs Board of Directors and Council and the International Council for Traditions of Music and Danceʻs Executive Board. His editing experience includes the aforementioned Garland Encyclopedia and Silk Road volumes, the journal Ethnomusicology  and the ICTMD Yearbook for Traditional Music. In July 2024, he will begin a four-year term as the new General Editor of Ethnomusicology Translations, an online, open-access, peer-reviewed series published by the Society for Ethnomusicology.

He can be reached at jlwitz@umd.edu