The Center for the Study of Early Asian and Middle Eastern Musics, established in Spring 2000 following two major gifts from alumni George and Joyce Billingsley and the Stella Boyle Smith Trust, is a research center located in the Department of History, J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

The Center coordinates the international Tang Music Project and is linked with the Ancient Asian Music Preservation Project of the Library of Congress, a co-operation that includes internships at the Library and an acquisitions program. The Center also functions as the base for honors undergraduate and graduate training in historical ethnomusicology and related fields, specifically tailored toward early documented repertories of ritual- and art-music and present day performance practices in historically significant musical traditions of Asia and the Middle East. The recovery and bringing-to-life of Early Asian Musics in performance and the design of music-centered algorithms and their implementation in computer programs for editing and analysis of notated and orally-transmitted musics are central aspects of the Center's research and teaching activities. The Center works closely with the Asian Studies Program, the Department of History, the Department of Music, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Comparative Literature & Cultural Studies Program, and the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies in sponsoring lectures, seminars, concerts and workshops, and collaborates in the development of international scholarly and institutional links, and of student and performing-artist exchanges.

Email contacts: Rembrandt Wolpert or Elizabeth Markham