Holdings Fine Arts and Applied Arts School of Music Donna Buchanan Papers and B... Finding Aid Holdings Fine Arts and Applied Arts School of Music Donna Buchanan Papers and B... Finding Aid By Nolan Vallier
Title: Donna Buchanan Papers and Balkan Music Ensemble "Balkanalia" Records, 1985-2026
ID: 12/5/93
Primary Creator: Buchanan, Donna (1960-)
Extent: 1.25 cubic feet
Arrangement: Materials are arranged in two series: Series 1) Papers and Series 2) Balkanalia Records.
Date Acquired: 07/17/2026
Subjects: Dissertations, Ethnography, Ethnomusicology, Faculty, Field Work, Folk music, Folk music--Bulgaria, Folk music - Music teachers, Music, School of, Music -- Bulgaria, Music -- Bulgaria - Religion and Sociology, Musicology, Russian Area Studies, Society for Ethnomusicology
Formats/Genres: Correspondence, Posters, Scrapbooks, Sound Recordings
Languages: English
Consists of scrapbooks, research, and correspondence, documenting Donna Buchanan's career as an ethnomusicologist and faculty member at the University of Illinois. Also includes posters, concert programs, photographs, sound recordings, organizational records, and video recordings of her Balkan music ensemble, Balkanalia.
Donna Anne Buchanan (1960- ) is an ethnomusicologist and professor emertia of musicology at the University of Illinois. Born in Malone, New York on July 29, 1960, she is the daughter of Elizabeth and John Buchanan. After attending Salmon River Central School in Fort Covington, New York, she attended Belloit College (WI). Buchanan received her bachelor's degree with majors in music and modern languages, with an emphasis in anthopology, in 1982. Following this, she earned both her MM (1985) and PhD (1991) degrees in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied with Gerard Behague, Steven Feld, and Stephen Slawek. From 1992 to 1997, she served as an Assistant Professor and Ethnomusicology Program Coordinator at New York University. She joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1997 and, in 1998, founded Balkanalia, the University of Illinois Balkan Music Ensemble. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2003.
Between 2004 and 2007, and again from 2018 and 2019, Buchanan served as the Director of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois. She is the recipient of many grants and fellowships, including a 2010 Fulbright-Hays Research grant, which was used to study music in Bulgaria. Between 2013 and 2016, she served as chair of the musicology division. In 2017, Buchanan received the Chancellor's Distinguished Promotion Award and was named an associate of the UI Center for Advanced Study. The following year, she received fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her forthcoming book.
Buchanan is the author of Performing Democracy: Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition and served as the editor for both Balkan Popular Cultre and the Ottoman Ecumene:Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse and Soundscapes from the Americas: Ethnomusicological Essays on the Power, Poetics, and Ontology of Performance. Her research interests have included acoustemology, performativity, postsocialism, cosmology, and social power.
She has served as the dissertation supervisor for many distinguished ethnomusicologists, including Carol Muller, Sandra Graham, David McDonald, and Magarethe Adams, among many others. Her contributions to the field of ethnomusicology include her service as a Council Member, Member of the Board of Directors, Chair of the Nomination Committee, and Member of the Long Range Planning Committee of the Society of Ethnomusicology. She has also been actively involved in the promotion of folk music research inside Bulgaria, serving as a member on the Council of Member Institutions for the American Research Center and as the co-founder and member of the Board of Directors for the Vergilii Atanasov Founation for Bulgarian and Balkan Ethno-organology.
Buchanan retired in 2024, but continues to lead and perform with Balkanalia.
Dissertations
Ethnography
Ethnomusicology
Faculty
Field Work
Folk music
Folk music--Bulgaria
Folk music - Music teachers
Music, School of
Music -- Bulgaria
Music -- Bulgaria - Religion and Sociology
Musicology
Russian Area Studies
Society for Ethnomusicology
Repository: The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music
Access Restrictions: Access to the collection's content must be approved by Donna Buchanan until July 17, 2036.
Acquisition Source: Donna Buchanan
Acquisition Method: Gift
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