Beth Aracena

As Associate Dean for Curriculum at EMU, Beth K. Aracena provides leadership for the Global Village Curriculum and Cross-cultural Program. She received her Ph.D. in music history and theory from the University of Chicago and her undergraduate degree from Vassar College. Her research interests focus on music in colonial Chile, Anabaptist musical practices in early America, pedagogy, and intercultural learning. Dr. Aracena has articles and reviews published in Latin American Music Review, Ethnomusicology, and The Eighteenth-Century Current Bibliography. She has presented papers at national and regional conferences of the American Musicological Society, Society for Ethnomusicology, College Music Society, Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, Student Success in Virginia, and Virginia Humanities Conference among others. In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Dr. Aracena has taught a variety of courses in the music department at Eastern Mennonite University, including music history, appreciation, world music, theory, form and analysis, and American popular music. She has also team-taught in an interdisciplinary context. Her interest in improving student learning stems from these diverse classroom experiences.

Dr. Aracena serves as the campus Fulbright Program Adviser. Her research in Chile was supported by a Fulbright-Hays dissertation research abroad fellowship.

Ph.D., M.A., University of Chicago
B.A., Vassar College

• Review of Miguel Angel Marin, Music on the Margin: Urban Musical Life in Eighteenth-Century Jaca (Spain), 2002. The Eighteenth-Century Current Bibliography, vol. 33. Kevin C. Cope and Robert C. Leitz III, eds., New York: AMS Press, 2007.
  
• “Latin American Music in the History of SEM.” Ethnomusicology 50 (2006): 314-23.
  
• “Currents in African-American Music of the Early Twentieth Century.” Commissioned essay published in program notes for “Summerland,” a play with music produced by the Sprenger-Lang Foundation. Washington, DC, June 2000.
  
• “Viewing the Ethnomusicological Past: Jesuit Influences on Araucanian Music in Colonial Chile.” Latin American Music Review 19 (1997): 1-29.

• “Community Learning in the First-Year Seminar.” Twenty-seventh Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, San Francisco, CA, February 15-29, 2008.
  
• “Keeping it Real: Closing the Loop on Engaged Learning.” Student Success in Virginia Conference, Harrisonburg, VA, October 12, 2007.
  
• “Traditional Musics: Pedagogical Parallels in Aaron Copland’s What to Listen for in Music (1939) and Bonnie Wade’s Thinking Musically (2004).” College Music Society Mid-Atlantic Chapter Annual Conference, Staunton, VA, March 17-18, 2006.
  
• “Latin American Music in the History of SEM.” Fiftieth Anniversary Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Atlanta, GA, November 17-20, 2005.
  
• “Melismas, Melodic Incipits, and Meistersingers: Reexamining Song Transmission in the Anabaptist Ausbund.” Seventy-First Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Washington, DC, October 27-30, 2005.
  
• “Psychoanalysis and Serialism: Musical Responses to Freud in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna.” Virginia Humanities Conference. Bridgewater, VA, March 19-20, 2004.
  
• “Who Am I in This Place?” Tuesday Luncheon Series at Eastern Mennonite University. Harrisonburg, VA, December 9, 2003.
  
• “Anabaptist Mennonite Music in Early Colonial America.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. Lancaster, PA, April 19-22, 2001.
  
• “Indigenous Representations: Araucanian Contributions to Sacred Procession in Colonial Chile.” Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Austin, TX, November 18-21, 1999.
  
• “Indecent Verse?: Song for the Feast of St. Ignatius in Colonial Chile.” Sixty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Phoenix, October 30-November 2, 1997. Earlier version read at the American Musicological Society Capital Chapter Meeting, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., January 11, 1997.
  
• “Convent Music and Culture in Colonial Chile.” Feminist Theory and Music 4, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, June 5-8, 1997.
  
• “Diabolic Music: Representing the Unfamiliar in Music Ethnographies of the Past.” Mid-Atlantic Chapter Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Peabody Conservatory of Music at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, March 22-24, 1996.
  
• “Viewing the Ethnomusicological Past: Jesuit Influences on Araucanian Music in Colonial Chile (1600-1767).” Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Los Angeles, October 19-22, 1995.

• Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA, various performances on violin and piano, 2000-06
  
• Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra, Harrisonburg, VA, violin, 2000-06
  
• McLean Orchestra, McLean, VA, violin, 1997-98
  
• New Music Ensemble of the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, violin and keyboard, 1990-92
  
• University of Chicago Symphonic Orchestra, Chicago, IL, violin, 1989-90
  
• Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, various performances on violin, barqoue violin, harpischord, and piano, 1985-89

• Guest Speaker, Spotswood High School Department of World Languages Honor Society Induction Ceremony, April, 2008
  
• Fulbright Program Adviser, Eastern Mennonite University, 2007 – present
  
• Item Writer for Introduction to Music, Excelsior College, Albany, NY, 2006
  
• Advisory Board Member, Arts Council of the Valley, 2001-2006
• Reviewer for Music First! textbook published by McGraw-Hill, 2004
• Faculty Mentor, Eastern Mennonite University, 2003-04 and 2004-05

• Verizon Foundation $10,000 grant for “Designing and Piloting Technology Competency at EMU,” May 2008
• $42,000 in grant revenue over five years for the Bach Festival from the Arts Council of the Valley, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Foundation
  
• Faculty Release Time Grant for Scholarship, Eastern Mennonite University, 2004-05 and 2002-03
• Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education. Research based in Santiago, Chile, 1994-95
• American Association of University Women American Fellowship, 1994-95, declined
  
• Tinker and Hewlett Foundations Travel Grant, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Chicago, Summer 1992
  
• University of Chicago Fellowship, 1989-93
  
• Harriet A. Shaw Fellowship, Wellesley College, 1989-90
  
• Vassar College Fellowship, honorary, 1989
  
• McKinney-Chittenden Summer Study Award, Vassar College, 1989 and 1988

NAFSA: Association of International Educators
American Musicological Society
Society for Ethnomusicology
College Music Society
Suzuki Association of the Americas

(2007-2008)
Global Village Curriculum Committee (chair)
Cross-cultural Committee (chair)
Dean’s Committee
Undergraduate Council
Writing Committee
Residential Living and Learning Task Force
Orientation Committee