Music Professor Timothy Rommen Wins Alan Merriam Prize
December 2008
Assistant Professor of Music Timothy Rommen’s first book, Mek Some Noise: Gospel Music and the Ethics of Style in Trinidad, has won the Society for Ethnomusicology’s 2008 Alan Merriam Prize, which recognizes the most distinguished English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology published in the previous two years.
An ethnographic study of Trinidadian gospel music, Mek Some Noise examines how the beliefs of Full Gospel Christians are translated into sacred music as it is created, performed, listened to and talked about. By exploring gospelypso, jamoo (“Jehovah's music”), gospel dancehall and North American gospel music—along with the discourses surrounding performances in these styles—Rommen illustrates the extent to which value, meaning and appropriateness are continually reinterpreted by Full Gospel believers.
With research interests including folk and popular sacred music, critical theory, ethics, diaspora and the intellectual history of ethnomusicology, Rommen’s current projects include a monograph exploring the popular musics of the Bahamas and a musical ethnography of the West Indian community in Philadelphia. In addition to Mek Some Noise, Rommen is a contributing author to Excursions in World Music (Fifth Edition) and The Cambridge History of World Music (forthcoming).
Rommen received his doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago in 2002, joining the Penn faculty that same year. He was a Rockefeller Resident Fellow at the Center for Black Music Research in 2004 through 2005.
The Society for Ethnomusicology was founded in 1955 to promote the research, study and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts. Through its publications and meetings, the Society provides a forum for discussion of current scholarly research among its more than 2,500 members from six continents.