Elizabeth A. Clendinning, PhD
Ethnomusicologist · Scholar · Musician · Filmmaker
Elizabeth A. Clendinning is an ethnomusicologist and interdisciplinary scholar whose work explores how sound, music, and performance shape understandings of culture, place, history, identity, and cultural difference. Her research and teaching connect ethnomusicology with sound studies, music theory, museum studies, performance and media studies, and cultural heritage and preservation.
Clendinning’s scholarship encompasses Indonesian and transnational performing arts, particularly Balinese gamelan, as well as the movement of musical practices across cultural and institutional contexts. Her book American Gamelan and the Ethnomusicological Imagination examines Balinese gamelan in the United States to consider broader questions of ethnomusicological knowledge, pedagogy, community, and cultural representation. She is also co-author, with Henry Spiller, of Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia. Her work in music theory and analysis considers how musical structures, sound qualities, and culturally specific ways of listening can inform the study and teaching of music, including her current research on Balinese sunari and suling (bamboo flute).
Her interdisciplinary work considers how music and sound become entangled with materiality, mediation, sustainability, and cultural encounter. In “Object Lessons: Teaching Musicology through Museum Collections,” she explores the pedagogical possibilities of musical instruments and museum collections; her work in Sound Studies and on film and television examines how sonic practices participate in the representation of people, places, and imagined worlds. Her documentary film Guna Pering (The Use of Bamboo), co-produced with I Gde Made Indra Sadguna, explores the ecological, social, and musical life of Balinese bamboo instruments. The project was supported by a 2024 AIFIS-Luce Documentary Filmmaker Grant.
Clendinning is also a performer, ensemble director, and public scholar. She founded and directs Wake Forest’s Balinese gamelan ensemble, Gamelan Giri Murti, and develops collaborative projects involving performance, museums, cultural heritage, and public humanities. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching have been recognized with Wake Forest University’s 2022 Award for Excellence in Research.
She is Professor of Music and Program Director of Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies at Wake Forest University.
Contact
Elizabeth A. Clendinning
Department of Music
Wake Forest University
P.O. Box 7345
Winston-Salem, NC 27109