Dr. Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy

Board Member

Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy (B.A. Vassar College 1970; M.M. Yale University 1972; Ph.D. Brown University 1980), is an Adjunct  Professor  in the Department of Ethnomusicology at UCLA, where she teaches courses on the classical and folk musics of South and Southeast Asians and Asian-Americans, field methodology, ethnographic film, music and the sacred, and applied and public sector ethnomusicology. Amy’s research, writing, teaching, curating, and multi-media publications often have an applied focus aimed at community development of minority traditions, especially in diasporic settings. Amy’s doctoral research on Karnatak music in Madras led her to co-direct documentaries on M.D. Ramanathan and T.N. Krishnan, both Padma Sri honorees. Her applied research includes projects with Cambodian-American refugees, Hmong-American tribal minority of Laos, and Sidi African-Indian Sufis of India, with documentaries on each. Her most recent video/DVD documentary, Music for a Goddess, concerns musical tradition and modernity among Dalit jogti musicians of the Deccan region of southern Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka. She and Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy co-directed Bake Restudy 1984, a documentary using Arnold Bake’s 1938 footage and audio recordings of sacred music in Tamilnadu, Karnataka, and Kerala, where she still continues to conduct applied research. Amy was recently appointed  Bake-Jairazbhoy Chair Professor for Indian Ocean Studies at PSMO College, Calicut University, Kerala.