Kati Szego
Ethnomusicology
B.Mus. Queen's
M.A. Hawaii
Ph.D. Washington
Kati Szego joined the School of Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1995, establishing its program in ethnomusicology. Former sound review editor of the Journal of American Folklore, she is a co-investigator in the SSHRC-MCRI project Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing (AIRS). With Beverley Diamond, Kati co-chaired the local arrangements committee for the 2011 ICTM World Conference in St. John's. She is Acting Director of the Research Centre for Music, Media & Place, 2011-13.
Kati’s interest in cultural border-crossing led her to study the colonial history of music and dance education at the Kamehameha Schools, a K-12 institution for Native Hawaiians in Honolulu. Since then, her work has focused on Hawai‘i and she continues to combine ethnographic and phenomenological approaches with archival research. Ongoing projects on Hawaiian choral music, falsetto singing and yodelling are subsumed by her larger interests in intercultural processes and discourses on vocal production. She is also in the process of reconstructing and interpreting an opera libretto written by Queen Lili‘uokalani, Hawai‘i's last reigning monarch. Seeking research sites closer to home, but pursuing Oceanic themes, Kati is currently examining the roles of women in the ‘ukulele revival that is now sweeping North America and Europe.
