Death of a pioneering ethnomusicologist, 91
RIPThe remarkable Adelaida ‘Dely’ Reyes died on August 24 in New Jersey, where she lived taught and taught for much of her life.
Arriving from the Philippines in the 1970s with two small children, she wrote an icebreaking dissertation, ‘The Role of Music in the Interaction of Black Americans and Hispanos in New York City’s East Harlem’. Further studies centred on the music of refugees from the Vietnam War. She was visiting professor at Columbia and Oxford.
Thank you, Mr Lebrecht, for reminding us that musicologists have always been interested in music’s interaction with the wider society. I did not know of Adelaida Reyes, but I am glad to find out about her work now, belatedly.
How sad that anything mentioning Phiip Ewell, or dealing with current concerns about race and polarized attitudes in music, is guaranteed dozens of mostly negative and ignorantly prejudiced comments, while this story gets no attention at all.