Making his mark on the Met...

What an exciting week for Allen! On Tuesday evening, the musical instruments department celebrated not only the launch of their year-long Martin Guitar exhibit but also the re-installation of the African and Indian cases in the non-Western gallery. 

Allen has been working for months to choose the objects in the cases, come up with the appropriate label descriptions, and go through all the machinations that go with putting an exhibit together. Not for nothing, there is actually quite a lot of manual labor (cleaning the cases, preparing the object mounts, running around like a looney trying to get it all done in time, etc).

This case features instruments from Africa with Anthropomorphic decoration

This Ogboni drum belonged to secret societies among Yoruba of West Africa and are increasingly rare in the 21st century. 

Tablas are on display again! This case is about court music in India and the accompaniment of song and dance.

Allen wrote these labels, and he made the audio guide stops last summer so you can hear his voice as you look at his display cases!

Most of these new cases are still only partially installed, so there will be more instruments in them in the months to come!

Oh, and the guitar exhibit was very excellent as well. It tells the story of Martin through his guitars; how his American style guitars showed influence from both German and Spanish styles. Music nerds will certainly rejoice in this exhibit.

Roots of the "American Guitar" in the 19th Century

Also, Allen was written up in the Society for Ethnomusicology's journal this week for winning the Charles Seeger Prize for the most distinguished student paper presented at last year's conference.

Commentaries on the paper noted that it offers a “behind-the-scenes look at the impact of the increasing demand for tablās on makers and on the making of the instrument from craftsmen who may spend hours with their customer as they finish an instrument to those who participate in wholesale manufacturing. Based on fieldwork in India with both makers and customers, this paper also demonstrates a keen awareness of theories of globalization and commoditization, as well as an ethical concern for not revealing trade secrets of his collaborators.”