Abstract:
Mervyn Evan McLean, teacher, mentor, researcher and
archivist, is the worthy recipient of this set of essays.
Oceanic Music Encounters - the Print Resource ano" the
Human Resource. The authors include colleagues and
former students of an academic who was a practising
ethnomusicologist only three years after the term was
coined. Although most of his university career was spent
at the University of Auckland, Mervyn's influence in the
fields of Pacific music research and archiving were such
that the contributions in this volume arc the result of
both distant reputation and personal acquaintance. The
volume is the product of the Study Group on Musics of
Oceania within the International Council for Traditional
Music, of which Mervyn has been a member for many
years. The volume title is intended to encompass the
span of Mervyn's professional interests, which include
the role of archives in Oceanic music research and
performance; material culture collections in music
research and performance; the role of transcription
in music research and performance; the importance
of bibliographic research in tracing the connections
between the past and the present; the significance of
collaboration in research, particularly with scholars in
other disciplines, and its significance to performance;
and the colonial encounter and its implications for
historical and contemporary performance.
