Award-winning ethnomusicologist Ailsa Lipscombe joins CCM’s faculty
Her research explores the intersections between music, sound studies and critical disability studies
UC College-Conservatory of Music Interim Dean Jonathan Kregor has announced the addition of Ailsa Lipscombe, PhD, to the college’s faculty of distinguished performing and media arts experts, researchers and educators. An award-winning researcher, Lipscombe begins her new role as Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at CCM on Aug. 15, 2024.
New CCM faculty member Ailsa Lipscombe. Photo/provided
Lipscombe holds a PhD in Music from the University of Chicago. Her primary research explores intersectional experiences of medicalization, with a focus on reimagining listening praxes through embodiment, relationality and trauma. Her work has been supported by the Fulbright Association, Te Tūapapa Mātauranga o Aotearoa me Amerika, the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Music Theory.
Lipscombe regularly presents research at the nexus of ethnomusicology, sound studies and critical disability studies at conferences across North America and Australasia. She was awarded the 2021 Charles Seeger Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology for her paper "When Silence Is Heard: Embodied Listening in Medical Facilities' Competing Sonic Epistemes." Her first monograph—titled Listening Beyond Crisis: Disability and the Medicalization of Everyday Life—is under contract with the University of Michigan Press, to be published within their Music and Social Justice series.
In her current postdoctoral position at Te Herenga Waka, Lipscombe is building on her expertise in digital ethnography and the decolonization of research methodologies to explore ethical transformations of Indigenous archiving in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this work, she centers community engagement and an ethics of care, guided by her own intersectional positionality as a queer, disabled researcher whose family whakapapas (traces their genealogy to) the Māori iwi of Te Whakatōhea.
When she is not working, Lipscombe enjoys competitive axe-throwing, curating the perfect road trip playlist and visiting national parks with her wife.
“Combining rigorous theoretical methods and practical applications, Ailsa Lipscombe’s research and teaching will give CCM students exciting opportunities to grow as scholars and performers,” said Kregor. “I am grateful to our search committee chair, Christopher Segall, and committee members Michele Kay, Stefan Fiol and Kristy Swift for their collaborative effort on this successful search.”
Next Lives Here
At the University of Cincinnati, we realize the impact our teaching, research, artistry and service can have on our community and the world. So, we don’t wait for change to happen. We break boundaries, boldly imagine and create what’s Next. To us, today’s possibilities spark tomorrow’s reality. That’s why we are leading urban public universities into a new era of innovation and impact, and that's how we are defining Next for the performing and media arts.
We're about engaging people and ideas - and transforming the world.
We are UC. Welcome to what's Next.
Featured image at top: A May 2024 panoramic photograph of CCM's Corbett Center for the Performing Arts and Mary Emery Hall. Photo/Curt Whitacre
Additional Contacts
Rebecca Butts | Assistant Public Information Officer
buttsrl@ucmail.uc.edu | 513-556-2675
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