George List

American ethnomusicologist, folklorist, archivist and researcher (9 February 1911, Tucson, Arizona — 28 September 2008, Ellettsville, Indiana). George List served as a Professor of Folklore, Director of the Inter-American Program in Ethnomusicology, and Director of the Archives of Traditional Music (from 1954 to '76) at Indiana University. He is often cited as one of the forerunners of modern ethnomusicology, with research interests including American folk, the traditional music of the Hopi tribes of Northern Arizona and indigenous tribes in the Caribbean regions of Colombia, Andes and Amazon regions of Ecuador. List was one of the first academics to merge the roles of ethnomusicologist and folklorist, insisting it's equally important to study both the music of indigenous and agricultural societies and other customs and forms of expressive culture, such as folktales. Despite losing his vision at 66, George remained active as a prolific researcher and author and died at 97. George H. List originally came to Indiana University to study conducting and composition and already had an established career as a conductor, composer and music tutor. He took George Herzog's comparative musicology classes in his mid-40s, and Herzog soon hired George as an assistant at the Archives of Folk and Primitive Music. In 1953, he was promoted to a newly-established Director role. Since no other similar archives in the United States existed, George List traveled to Austria and visited the renowned Vienna Phonogrammarchiv for guidance and best practices. During his tenure, List supervised the Archive's relocation to permanent facilities, gradually transforming it from a miscellanea collection into a modern, well-organized public resource for researchers and communities, setting robust standards in conservation and cataloging for subsequent US ethnographic sound archives. In 1965, George List changed the name to "Archives of Traditional Music" (getting rid of the derogatory term "primitive"). The system for numbering and labeling shelves he proposed is still currently used. In the 1960s, List traveled to the Colombian Caribbean coastal region to research local musical traditions, amassing 120 open reel tapes with music, interviews, and folk tales over four trips. He published a seminal book, Music And Poetry In A Colombian Village: A Tri-Cultural Heritage, in 1983 and dozens of academic papers based on Colombian fieldwork.