Julia Byl

University of Alberta, Music, Faculty Member

King's College London, Music, Post-Doc

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Margaret Kartomi. Musical Journeys in Sumatra. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. xxix, 487 pp., note, list of music examples, list of figures, list of maps and figures, preface, appendixes, link to recordings, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 978–0–252–03671–2. ISBN 978–0–252–09382–1...

Yearbook for Traditional Music

Antiphonal histories: Performing Toba Batak past and present

Situated along centuries-old global trade routes, North Sumatra has long been a place of global c... more Situated along centuries-old global trade routes, North Sumatra has long been a place of global confluence. My dissertation examines the ways in which musical performance among the Toba Batak people, a group living in the island's interior and in its large cities, reflects this legacy. The cultural and musical history of the Toba has been affected by successive waves of foreign influence from India, the Middle-East and the West. Dutch colonialism and German missionary activity transformed Toba culture and society in the nineteenth century, and Indonesian independence resulted in Toba incorporation into a larger national identity. This dissertation examines the multiple musical genres that are present in Toba performances, illuminating the broader contours of Toba history. The interaction between Toba past and present emerges in the culture's multiple performance traditions, composed of many genres with roots in varied histories. On a broad level, this dissertation aims to show the ways that old and new histories participate in global trajectories by using Toba musical performance as a case study. On a smaller level, it uses the personal experiences of informant and researcher to demonstrate how these larger histories are relevant in day-to-day lives.Ph.D.Communication and the ArtsCultural anthropologyMusicSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125621/2/3208429.pd

Music, Resilience, and Indigenous Catholocism in Occupied East Timor (1975-1999)

Ethnomusicology and the Indian Ocean: On the Politics of Area Studies

Ethnomusicology, 2020

This article draws on the recent boom in Indian Ocean studies to build a framework for registerin... more This article draws on the recent boom in Indian Ocean studies to build a framework for registering the Indian Ocean in ethnomusicology. We show how the human experiences of movement across the Indian Ocean expanse have conditioned the musical traditions of ports and islands, and we put ethnomusicological writings on places like Zanzibar and Oman into dialogue with those from Mauritius and Singapore. We address how ethnomusicology’s area studies paradigm has inhibited musical studies of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR); the specter of comparative musicology; and the perils of modern Indian Ocean populations in light of postcolonial ethnonationalisms.Untuk membangun pengertian Lingkup Samudra India (Indian Ocean Studies) dalam bidang ethnomusikologi, artikel ini bersumber dari kumpulan studi sarjana-sarjana ilmu sosial yang merintis penelitian ini. Pengalaman migrasi manusia, dari pulau ke pulau dan pelabuhan ke pelabuhan, telah membentuk kebudayaan bermusik yang sudah lama dalam lingkup...

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TheSyair Tabutof Encik Ali

Indonesia and the Malay World, Sep 2, 2017

This is an annotated transcription and translation of the Syair Tabut (Poem of the Tomb Effigies)... more This is an annotated transcription and translation of the Syair Tabut (Poem of the Tomb Effigies) of Encik Ali, a Malay-language, Jawi-script syair account of the Muharram commemorations of 1864 at Singapore. The only known part lithograph and part manuscript of this text, on which this edition is based, is held in the library of Leiden University, shelfmark Kl. 191. For a full discussion of this Syair, see the accompanying article Lunn and Byl (2017).

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‘One story ends and another begins’

Indonesia and the Malay World, Sep 2, 2017

This is the first treatment of a hitherto unknown text, a hybrid lithograph-manuscript from 1864 ... more This is the first treatment of a hitherto unknown text, a hybrid lithograph-manuscript from 1864 called the Syair Tabut, or 'Poem of the tomb effigies', by Encik Ali. The only known copy of the Syair, held at Leiden University in the Klinkert collection, and transcribed and translated by Byl, Iskandar, Lunn, and McCallum (2017), describes the Muharram commemorations at Singapore that year. As the poet describes the procession and its consequences, he reveals much about inter-community participation in this ritual event. Significantly, the 1864 Muharram procession ended with an altercation that resulted in the banning of the ritual by the colonial government, and led to two major court cases on native culpability and police corruption. Encik Ali's poem offers an alternative perspective, conditioned by the wide-ranging vocabulary and conventions of Muharram, a vivid description of diverse performances and events, a knowledge of Singapore's urban geography, and the parameters of Malay poetry.

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Hindustani Traces in Malay Ghazal: ‘A song, So Old and Yet Still Famous’, by Chinthaka Prageeth Meddegoda and Gisa Jähnichen

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at ... more

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Music, Convert, and Subject in the North Sumatran Mission Field

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016

Antiphonal Histories: Resonant Pasts in the Toba Batak Musical Present

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