Abigail Wood | University of Haifa (original) (raw)

Books by Abigail Wood

Intro and contents page downloadable from Ashgate website (see links below) The dawn of the tw... more Intro and contents page downloadable from Ashgate website (see links below)

The dawn of the twenty-first century marked a turning period for American Yiddish culture. The 'Old World' of Yiddish-speaking Eastern Europe was fading from living memory - yet at the same time, Yiddish song enjoyed a renaissance of creative interest, both among a younger generation seeking reengagement with the Yiddish language, and, most prominently via the transnational revival of klezmer music.

The last quarter of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first saw a steady stream of new songbook publications and recordings in Yiddish - newly composed songs, well-known singers performing nostalgic favourites, American popular songs translated into Yiddish, theatre songs, and even a couple of forays into Yiddish hip hop; musicians meanwhile engaged with discourses of musical revival, post-Holocaust cultural politics, the transformation of language use, radical alterity and a new generation of American Jewish identities. This book explores how Yiddish song became such a potent medium for musical and ideological creativity at the twilight of the twentieth century, presenting an episode in the flowing timeline of a musical repertory - New York at the dawn of the twenty-first century - and outlining some of the trajectories that Yiddish song and its singers have taken to, and beyond, this point.

Journal articles by Abigail Wood

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2024

The present article explores the revitalization of the Sephardi selichot (penitential prayers) cu... more The present article explores the revitalization of the Sephardi selichot (penitential prayers) custom in recent decades in Israel. From melodies that formed part of an early morning synagogue service described in the 1970s as declining in popularity, by the 2020s, Sephardi selichot have established a highly audible place in Jewish-Israeli culture, via large-scale concerts, media broadcasts and popular recordings that define the public Israeli soundscape during the month of Elul and the “days of penitence” between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. These new renditions of selichot have made significant inroads into Israeli public culture, in part through their ability to align the musical-emotional desires of the audience with the artistic and cultural agendas of audiences, musicians, culture brokers and local politicians. The cultural ecology sustaining this transformation embodies deep-rooted processes of change in Israeli society, including the increasing visibility and perceived coolness of Mizrahi culture, and the increasing prominence, since the 1990s, of elements of religious Judaism in Israeli public culture. In this article, we examine how the transformation of the selichot into mainstream auditory culture is articulated through the interweaving of conservative and innovative elements, anchoring a musical-religious repertory in public spaces that resonate both national and religious meaning.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725886.2024.2366941

Ethnomusicology Forum, 2021

From warning sirens to loud booms in the sky; from tweaked radio playlists to the silence of a mi... more From warning sirens to loud booms in the sky; from tweaked radio playlists to the silence of a military funeral, sound is central to the civilian experience of wartime in Israel. Drawing upon public discourse among Jewish-Israelis during periods of armed conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza during 2012 and 2014, this article explores practices of civilian listening and sounding during times of national emergency. More than just making the ears prick, wartime sounds are implicated in an assemblage of bodily action: stimulating the body to move, prompting vocal responses and serving as a focal point for conversation. Recent work in ethnomusicology has sought to theorise soundscapes and listening practices during wartimeyet most work to date has focused on combatants. Building on previous literature in sound studies and on civil preparedness, in this article I focus on wartime regimes of civilian listening, arguing that embodied listening and sounding practices index a reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and its citizens, characterised by mutually co-constructed vigilance, and articulating consensual models of disciplined citizenship that help to sustain collective resilience, yet which also reinforce ethnonational divisions in society and bolster neoliberal practices of securitisation.

Music Education Research, 2021

This article probes the socially embedded musical pathways and learning strategies followed by pr... more This article probes the socially embedded musical pathways and learning strategies followed by professional Palestinian Arab wedding musicians active in the Galilee region of northern Israel from the late 1960s until the present day, from their first childhood experiences of music until the point when they step onto the platform for the first time to perform for payment at a wedding party. Following Susan O’Neill’s model of the thick learning ecologies – interconnected and situated learning environments – that young people draw upon in order to build their musical competence (2017), and based on data from narrative interviews, we examine the processes by which young Palestinian Arab musicians in the Galilee acquire the musical, technical, social and entrepreneurial knowledge required to enter the wedding scene.

Yearbook for Traditional Music, 2020

Based on recent ethnographic work, we explore the ways in which transnational cosmopolitan music ... more Based on recent ethnographic work, we explore the ways in which transnational cosmopolitan music crosses, creates, and reinscribes borders as it is performed by Palestinian Arab wedding musicians in northern Israel. While Palestinian nationalism and the hard political borders between Israel and its neighbouring states frame immediate questions of identity and mobility, in describing their musical practices, musicians turn to a complex, interleaved series of geographies that highlight past and contemporary processes of musical flow. On one hand, they foreground the continuing relevance of the historic al-Sham region as an area of shared musical practice, identifying with the jabali ("mountain") musical style of the elevated region that marks the borderlands between today's Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. On the other hand, they embed this regional style within a series of micro-and macro-geographies, from detailed knowledge of the subtle differences in tempo and style between neighbouring Galilee villages to connections with the wider Arabic-speaking world via old and new media. While recent research on music in the Middle East has often foregrounded the role of music in constructing and reinforcing national identities, this research illustrates how transnational flows continue to shape the experience and imagination of musical borderlands in the region.

world of music (new series), 2018

Introduction to special issue of world of music (new series): Sharing Space? Sharing Culture? App... more Introduction to special issue of world of music (new series): Sharing Space? Sharing Culture? Applied Experiments in Music-Making Across Borders. In this issue we examine the work done by applied music workshops and performances that seek to create bridges across cul tures, to bring participants from different communities into shared spaces, to high- light shared heritage across political borders, and to probe the ways in which such practices might function as a research tool. Here, shared spaces might be conceived as physical, acoustic and discursive, and as both inhabited and imagined (Johnson 2013:x), by both organisers and musicians . While all of the projects detailed in this issue brought musicians together into physical proximity and shared soundscapes, several contributions highlight that shared— even successful—musicking does not necessarily imply a neutral meeting ground or shared narratives to frame and make sense of sounds and experiences. These articles index three significant changes in the ontology and practice of ethnomusicologists during recent decades: the increasing prominence of the subfield of applied ethnomusicology; the increasing legitimacy of musical fusion projects within ethnomusicology; and changing material conditions including digital technology, low-cost flights, changes in higher education funding and increasingly restrictive border policies.

world of music (new series), 2018

During the summer of 2017, a musically and culturally diverse group of fifteen young musicians ... more During the summer of 2017, a musically and culturally diverse group of fifteen young musicians from Haifa, Israel, and fifteen from Weimar, Germany, came together for ten days in each city to form the “Caravan Orchestra,” a new ensemble that sought to reopen lost musical connections between cognate Jewish, Arabic, and European rep- ertories. Seeking to explore an “often-overlooked historical, transnational cultural matrix” rooted in the long arc of the Ottoman empire, the Caravan project proved to be a wider voyage of discovery, in which a large group of stakeholders from two countries—ethnomusicologists, musicians, students, funders and institutions—ex- plored what such a conversation might entail. Like many intensive musical projects, the Caravan Orchestra was a transformative experience for many of those involved, marked by the exhilaration of producing good music on a concert stage and validated by audience applause, dancing and ovations. Yet beyond aesthetic satisfaction, what kind of insights can such a project offer into the “disrupted musical histories” that it seeks to explore? In this article, I explore this question via three elements of the Caravan experience: musicianship, repertory, and identities.

Contemporary Jewry, 2015

The Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem is at once a visual icon, a religious site and a ph... more The Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem is at once a visual icon, a religious site and a physical symbol of Jewish-Israeli identity. Discussions of contested space at the Western Wall have often focused on physical topography: the size of the women’s prayer area; the provision of prayer spaces for non-Orthodox groups. Here, however, I turn to the sounds of the plaza to explore the expression and limits of shared space at this central site. The open plaza forms a flexible and resonant physical and conceptual space within which contrasting Jewish and Israeli practices and narratives jostle shoulder to shoulder, simultaneously enacting tradition and modernity; conservatism and creativity. In this article, I suggest that a shift in sensory modality - listening, rather than looking - might productively refocus and complicate our readings of the Western Wall plaza, showing how normative national and religious narratives are actively produced, jostled, negotiated and undermined by the individuals who use the site on a daily basis.

Ethnomusicology Forum, Oct 2014

**CLICK ON LINK FOR FULL TEXT ACCESS VIA TAYLOR & FRANCIS OR EMAIL TO REQUEST FINAL VERSION** Bui... more **CLICK ON LINK FOR FULL TEXT ACCESS VIA TAYLOR & FRANCIS OR EMAIL TO REQUEST FINAL VERSION** Building on the recent ‘auditory turn’ in ethnomusicology and on recent anthropological approaches to pilgrimage, this article considers how the soundscapes and vocal practices of European and American Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem’s Old City shape the practices and experiences of pilgrimage. Sounds colour the ethical comportment of pilgrims; listening, both voluntarily and involuntarily, intervenes in their interactions with others in the pilgrimage environment, provoking a range of public and private responses. Focusing attention on the auditory landscape provides compelling insights into the practices and politics of pilgrimage, in particular revealing moments of tension as pilgrims seek to realise personal and communal ideals in a crowded, shared space.

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6:3, Nov 2013

This article explores the intertwined roles of sound performance, listening, and narration as age... more This article explores the intertwined roles of sound performance, listening, and narration as agentive modes of parsing conflicted spaces in Jerusalem’s Old City. Via a series of ethnographic case studies, I illustrate some of the everyday ways in which overlapping geographies are constructed and communicated in public and semi-public ‘civil’ spaces at the contested seams of Israel and Palestine. In performing music in the city, citing poetry or pronouncing judgments on the soundscape, inhabitants and visitors draw upon both sensory experiences and a broad corpus of literary, artistic, historical and narrative commentary on the city. Drawing on the work of Michael Jackson and Davide Panagia, I suggest that unnarratable sensory experiences such as these might expose moments when political subjectivity is reconfigured, challenging unitary narratives by highlighting the inherent complexity and ambiguity of everyday experience.

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6:3, Nov 2013

Introduction to special issue of Journal of Middle East Culture and Communication. See my homepag... more Introduction to special issue of Journal of Middle East Culture and Communication. See my homepage for full article.

Ethnomusicology Forum, Jan 1, 2010

Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 2009

Review article: Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds), The Cultural Stud... more Review article:

Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds), The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003. vii + 368pp. ISBN 0 415 93845 7.

Jennifer C. Post (ed.), Ethomusicology: A Contemporary Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. xii + 446pp. ISBN 0 415 97204 3.

Suzel Ana Reily (ed.), The Musical Human: Rethinking John Blacking’s Ethnomusicology in the Twenty-First Century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. xi + 220pp. ISBN 0 7546 5138 X.

Bruno Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts (new edition). Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. xiii + 514pp. ISBN 0 252 07278 2.

Ethnomusicology, 51 (2). pp. 205-37 , 2007

Ethnomusicology Forum, Jan 1, 2007

Journal of the Society for American Music, 1 (3). pp. 367-92, 2007

Over the past three decades, klezmer music has undergone a revival and a radical transformation f... more Over the past three decades, klezmer music has undergone a revival and a radical transformation from virtual obscurity to a staple in the European American world music scene. Although the fusion of instrumental and vocal genres under a single musical umbrella is a significant marker of change between the Old World and revived klezmer repertories, the extension of the boundaries of the klezmer repertory to encompass vocal material has largely been overlooked by practitioners and scholars. This article reinstates song in the narrative of the klezmer revival, exploring how and why it has assumed its prominent position. In case studies of three ensembles, song gives insight into the sensibilities of individual musicians and offers a prism through which to consider contemporary klezmer as both an American Jewish heritage music and a world music genre. Reinstating song into the discussion of contemporary klezmer provides a more nuanced account of the global klezmer phenomenon. xxx

European Judaism, Jan 1, 2002

The Holocaust left not only obliteration, but also an imperative to remember. Immediately after l... more The Holocaust left not only obliteration, but also an imperative to remember. Immediately after liberation, and even during the war in some ghettos, folklorists began to collect songs from survivors. Before the war, Yiddish songs had been valued among scholars principally for ...

Book chapters by Abigail Wood

Short chapter in Amalia Ran and Moshe Morad (eds) Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in th... more Short chapter in Amalia Ran and Moshe Morad (eds) Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Pieces of the Musical World: Sounds and Cultures, ed. Rachel Harris and Rowan Pease. Routledge., 2015

Chapter in an exciting new multimedia ethnomusicology teaching resource which uses sound-objects ... more Chapter in an exciting new multimedia ethnomusicology teaching resource which uses sound-objects and musical pieces as a springboard to discuss issues of music, culture, performance, musicians and meanings. See website for more details.

In Lawrence Roth and Nadia Valman, eds. Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures. London and New York: Routledge., 2014

Gender, modernity, religious sociability and piety in contemporary Orthodox Jewish popular music.

Intro and contents page downloadable from Ashgate website (see links below) The dawn of the tw... more Intro and contents page downloadable from Ashgate website (see links below)

The dawn of the twenty-first century marked a turning period for American Yiddish culture. The 'Old World' of Yiddish-speaking Eastern Europe was fading from living memory - yet at the same time, Yiddish song enjoyed a renaissance of creative interest, both among a younger generation seeking reengagement with the Yiddish language, and, most prominently via the transnational revival of klezmer music.

The last quarter of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first saw a steady stream of new songbook publications and recordings in Yiddish - newly composed songs, well-known singers performing nostalgic favourites, American popular songs translated into Yiddish, theatre songs, and even a couple of forays into Yiddish hip hop; musicians meanwhile engaged with discourses of musical revival, post-Holocaust cultural politics, the transformation of language use, radical alterity and a new generation of American Jewish identities. This book explores how Yiddish song became such a potent medium for musical and ideological creativity at the twilight of the twentieth century, presenting an episode in the flowing timeline of a musical repertory - New York at the dawn of the twenty-first century - and outlining some of the trajectories that Yiddish song and its singers have taken to, and beyond, this point.

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2024

The present article explores the revitalization of the Sephardi selichot (penitential prayers) cu... more The present article explores the revitalization of the Sephardi selichot (penitential prayers) custom in recent decades in Israel. From melodies that formed part of an early morning synagogue service described in the 1970s as declining in popularity, by the 2020s, Sephardi selichot have established a highly audible place in Jewish-Israeli culture, via large-scale concerts, media broadcasts and popular recordings that define the public Israeli soundscape during the month of Elul and the “days of penitence” between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. These new renditions of selichot have made significant inroads into Israeli public culture, in part through their ability to align the musical-emotional desires of the audience with the artistic and cultural agendas of audiences, musicians, culture brokers and local politicians. The cultural ecology sustaining this transformation embodies deep-rooted processes of change in Israeli society, including the increasing visibility and perceived coolness of Mizrahi culture, and the increasing prominence, since the 1990s, of elements of religious Judaism in Israeli public culture. In this article, we examine how the transformation of the selichot into mainstream auditory culture is articulated through the interweaving of conservative and innovative elements, anchoring a musical-religious repertory in public spaces that resonate both national and religious meaning.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725886.2024.2366941

Ethnomusicology Forum, 2021

From warning sirens to loud booms in the sky; from tweaked radio playlists to the silence of a mi... more From warning sirens to loud booms in the sky; from tweaked radio playlists to the silence of a military funeral, sound is central to the civilian experience of wartime in Israel. Drawing upon public discourse among Jewish-Israelis during periods of armed conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza during 2012 and 2014, this article explores practices of civilian listening and sounding during times of national emergency. More than just making the ears prick, wartime sounds are implicated in an assemblage of bodily action: stimulating the body to move, prompting vocal responses and serving as a focal point for conversation. Recent work in ethnomusicology has sought to theorise soundscapes and listening practices during wartimeyet most work to date has focused on combatants. Building on previous literature in sound studies and on civil preparedness, in this article I focus on wartime regimes of civilian listening, arguing that embodied listening and sounding practices index a reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and its citizens, characterised by mutually co-constructed vigilance, and articulating consensual models of disciplined citizenship that help to sustain collective resilience, yet which also reinforce ethnonational divisions in society and bolster neoliberal practices of securitisation.

Music Education Research, 2021

This article probes the socially embedded musical pathways and learning strategies followed by pr... more This article probes the socially embedded musical pathways and learning strategies followed by professional Palestinian Arab wedding musicians active in the Galilee region of northern Israel from the late 1960s until the present day, from their first childhood experiences of music until the point when they step onto the platform for the first time to perform for payment at a wedding party. Following Susan O’Neill’s model of the thick learning ecologies – interconnected and situated learning environments – that young people draw upon in order to build their musical competence (2017), and based on data from narrative interviews, we examine the processes by which young Palestinian Arab musicians in the Galilee acquire the musical, technical, social and entrepreneurial knowledge required to enter the wedding scene.

Yearbook for Traditional Music, 2020

Based on recent ethnographic work, we explore the ways in which transnational cosmopolitan music ... more Based on recent ethnographic work, we explore the ways in which transnational cosmopolitan music crosses, creates, and reinscribes borders as it is performed by Palestinian Arab wedding musicians in northern Israel. While Palestinian nationalism and the hard political borders between Israel and its neighbouring states frame immediate questions of identity and mobility, in describing their musical practices, musicians turn to a complex, interleaved series of geographies that highlight past and contemporary processes of musical flow. On one hand, they foreground the continuing relevance of the historic al-Sham region as an area of shared musical practice, identifying with the jabali ("mountain") musical style of the elevated region that marks the borderlands between today's Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. On the other hand, they embed this regional style within a series of micro-and macro-geographies, from detailed knowledge of the subtle differences in tempo and style between neighbouring Galilee villages to connections with the wider Arabic-speaking world via old and new media. While recent research on music in the Middle East has often foregrounded the role of music in constructing and reinforcing national identities, this research illustrates how transnational flows continue to shape the experience and imagination of musical borderlands in the region.

world of music (new series), 2018

Introduction to special issue of world of music (new series): Sharing Space? Sharing Culture? App... more Introduction to special issue of world of music (new series): Sharing Space? Sharing Culture? Applied Experiments in Music-Making Across Borders. In this issue we examine the work done by applied music workshops and performances that seek to create bridges across cul tures, to bring participants from different communities into shared spaces, to high- light shared heritage across political borders, and to probe the ways in which such practices might function as a research tool. Here, shared spaces might be conceived as physical, acoustic and discursive, and as both inhabited and imagined (Johnson 2013:x), by both organisers and musicians . While all of the projects detailed in this issue brought musicians together into physical proximity and shared soundscapes, several contributions highlight that shared— even successful—musicking does not necessarily imply a neutral meeting ground or shared narratives to frame and make sense of sounds and experiences. These articles index three significant changes in the ontology and practice of ethnomusicologists during recent decades: the increasing prominence of the subfield of applied ethnomusicology; the increasing legitimacy of musical fusion projects within ethnomusicology; and changing material conditions including digital technology, low-cost flights, changes in higher education funding and increasingly restrictive border policies.

world of music (new series), 2018

During the summer of 2017, a musically and culturally diverse group of fifteen young musicians ... more During the summer of 2017, a musically and culturally diverse group of fifteen young musicians from Haifa, Israel, and fifteen from Weimar, Germany, came together for ten days in each city to form the “Caravan Orchestra,” a new ensemble that sought to reopen lost musical connections between cognate Jewish, Arabic, and European rep- ertories. Seeking to explore an “often-overlooked historical, transnational cultural matrix” rooted in the long arc of the Ottoman empire, the Caravan project proved to be a wider voyage of discovery, in which a large group of stakeholders from two countries—ethnomusicologists, musicians, students, funders and institutions—ex- plored what such a conversation might entail. Like many intensive musical projects, the Caravan Orchestra was a transformative experience for many of those involved, marked by the exhilaration of producing good music on a concert stage and validated by audience applause, dancing and ovations. Yet beyond aesthetic satisfaction, what kind of insights can such a project offer into the “disrupted musical histories” that it seeks to explore? In this article, I explore this question via three elements of the Caravan experience: musicianship, repertory, and identities.

Contemporary Jewry, 2015

The Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem is at once a visual icon, a religious site and a ph... more The Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem is at once a visual icon, a religious site and a physical symbol of Jewish-Israeli identity. Discussions of contested space at the Western Wall have often focused on physical topography: the size of the women’s prayer area; the provision of prayer spaces for non-Orthodox groups. Here, however, I turn to the sounds of the plaza to explore the expression and limits of shared space at this central site. The open plaza forms a flexible and resonant physical and conceptual space within which contrasting Jewish and Israeli practices and narratives jostle shoulder to shoulder, simultaneously enacting tradition and modernity; conservatism and creativity. In this article, I suggest that a shift in sensory modality - listening, rather than looking - might productively refocus and complicate our readings of the Western Wall plaza, showing how normative national and religious narratives are actively produced, jostled, negotiated and undermined by the individuals who use the site on a daily basis.

Ethnomusicology Forum, Oct 2014

**CLICK ON LINK FOR FULL TEXT ACCESS VIA TAYLOR & FRANCIS OR EMAIL TO REQUEST FINAL VERSION** Bui... more **CLICK ON LINK FOR FULL TEXT ACCESS VIA TAYLOR & FRANCIS OR EMAIL TO REQUEST FINAL VERSION** Building on the recent ‘auditory turn’ in ethnomusicology and on recent anthropological approaches to pilgrimage, this article considers how the soundscapes and vocal practices of European and American Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem’s Old City shape the practices and experiences of pilgrimage. Sounds colour the ethical comportment of pilgrims; listening, both voluntarily and involuntarily, intervenes in their interactions with others in the pilgrimage environment, provoking a range of public and private responses. Focusing attention on the auditory landscape provides compelling insights into the practices and politics of pilgrimage, in particular revealing moments of tension as pilgrims seek to realise personal and communal ideals in a crowded, shared space.

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6:3, Nov 2013

This article explores the intertwined roles of sound performance, listening, and narration as age... more This article explores the intertwined roles of sound performance, listening, and narration as agentive modes of parsing conflicted spaces in Jerusalem’s Old City. Via a series of ethnographic case studies, I illustrate some of the everyday ways in which overlapping geographies are constructed and communicated in public and semi-public ‘civil’ spaces at the contested seams of Israel and Palestine. In performing music in the city, citing poetry or pronouncing judgments on the soundscape, inhabitants and visitors draw upon both sensory experiences and a broad corpus of literary, artistic, historical and narrative commentary on the city. Drawing on the work of Michael Jackson and Davide Panagia, I suggest that unnarratable sensory experiences such as these might expose moments when political subjectivity is reconfigured, challenging unitary narratives by highlighting the inherent complexity and ambiguity of everyday experience.

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6:3, Nov 2013

Introduction to special issue of Journal of Middle East Culture and Communication. See my homepag... more Introduction to special issue of Journal of Middle East Culture and Communication. See my homepage for full article.

Ethnomusicology Forum, Jan 1, 2010

Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 2009

Review article: Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds), The Cultural Stud... more Review article:

Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds), The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003. vii + 368pp. ISBN 0 415 93845 7.

Jennifer C. Post (ed.), Ethomusicology: A Contemporary Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. xii + 446pp. ISBN 0 415 97204 3.

Suzel Ana Reily (ed.), The Musical Human: Rethinking John Blacking’s Ethnomusicology in the Twenty-First Century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. xi + 220pp. ISBN 0 7546 5138 X.

Bruno Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts (new edition). Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. xiii + 514pp. ISBN 0 252 07278 2.

Ethnomusicology, 51 (2). pp. 205-37 , 2007

Ethnomusicology Forum, Jan 1, 2007

Journal of the Society for American Music, 1 (3). pp. 367-92, 2007

Over the past three decades, klezmer music has undergone a revival and a radical transformation f... more Over the past three decades, klezmer music has undergone a revival and a radical transformation from virtual obscurity to a staple in the European American world music scene. Although the fusion of instrumental and vocal genres under a single musical umbrella is a significant marker of change between the Old World and revived klezmer repertories, the extension of the boundaries of the klezmer repertory to encompass vocal material has largely been overlooked by practitioners and scholars. This article reinstates song in the narrative of the klezmer revival, exploring how and why it has assumed its prominent position. In case studies of three ensembles, song gives insight into the sensibilities of individual musicians and offers a prism through which to consider contemporary klezmer as both an American Jewish heritage music and a world music genre. Reinstating song into the discussion of contemporary klezmer provides a more nuanced account of the global klezmer phenomenon. xxx

European Judaism, Jan 1, 2002

The Holocaust left not only obliteration, but also an imperative to remember. Immediately after l... more The Holocaust left not only obliteration, but also an imperative to remember. Immediately after liberation, and even during the war in some ghettos, folklorists began to collect songs from survivors. Before the war, Yiddish songs had been valued among scholars principally for ...

Short chapter in Amalia Ran and Moshe Morad (eds) Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in th... more Short chapter in Amalia Ran and Moshe Morad (eds) Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Pieces of the Musical World: Sounds and Cultures, ed. Rachel Harris and Rowan Pease. Routledge., 2015

Chapter in an exciting new multimedia ethnomusicology teaching resource which uses sound-objects ... more Chapter in an exciting new multimedia ethnomusicology teaching resource which uses sound-objects and musical pieces as a springboard to discuss issues of music, culture, performance, musicians and meanings. See website for more details.

In Lawrence Roth and Nadia Valman, eds. Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures. London and New York: Routledge., 2014

Gender, modernity, religious sociability and piety in contemporary Orthodox Jewish popular music.

In Jane Garnett and Alana Harris, eds. Rescripting Religion in the City: Migration and Religious Identity in the Modern Metropolis. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate., 2013

In Tim Shephard and Anne Leonard (eds) The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture. New York and London: Routledge., 2014

In Henry Stobart, ed. The new (ethno)musicologies. Lantham, MD: Scarecrow Press., 2008

This document details hundreds of collections of Yiddish songs published c. 1900-2002, including ... more This document details hundreds of collections of Yiddish songs published c. 1900-2002, including information about language and script use, categorization of songs, and whether musical notation is included. The list is not exhaustive, but includes material held in many prominent collections. I compiled this index as part of my PhD thesis (University of Cambridge, 2004) and am making it available here in .pdf form for anyone interested.

The Middle East in London, December 2009-January 2010, pp 11-12, Dec 2009

... Item Type: Other. Authors/Creators: Wood, Abigail. SOAS Departments & Centres: Facult... more ... Item Type: Other. Authors/Creators: Wood, Abigail. SOAS Departments & Centres: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Department of Music. ID Code: 4358. Deposited By: Abigail Wood. Deposited On: 07 Mar 2008 15:10. Statistics. Item downloaded times since 07 Mar 2008 15:10. ...

Music and Letters 95/2, 311-313 , 2014

Ethnomusicology Forum 23/2, 268-271., 2014

Ethnomusicology Forum 21/1, 119-123 (2012) , 2012

Music and Letters 90/4, 727-730 (2009). , 2009

Ethnomusicology Forum 19/1, 119-121 (2010), 2010

The mythic and historical origins of Jewish and Arabic music, and the development of related stra... more The mythic and historical origins of Jewish and Arabic music, and the development of related strands of religious and scholarly thought, are topics of enduring scholarly interest. Nevertheless, perhaps the greatest challenge in exploring these areas is the need to ...

Music and Letters 93/1, 89-90 (2012), 2012