The Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) has announced the publication of Vol. 2, No. 2 of Yale Journal of Music & Religion (YJMR), and the appointment of Jeffers L. Engelhardt as its new editor-in-chief, effective October 1.
The current issue, entitled “The Sounds of Procession,” was guest edited by Suzel Reily. It examines the sounds of religious processions in England, Indonesia, Italy, Morocco, and Portugal.
Engelhardt will succeed Robin A. Leaver, who was involved in the long gestation period of the journal and has served as general editor since the YJMR launched its first issue in 2015. Leaver’s own work spans Lutheran theology, Bach studies, and twentieth-century hymnology. Most recently, he coedited the book Exploring Bach’s B-minor Mass with Yo Tomita and Jan Smaczny (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Results of his continuing research are forthcoming, including works on Luther’s early hymns (Eerdmans), Bach research (Routledge), and the organ accompaniment of Congregational singing (Wayne Leupold).
Under Leaver, the first four issues of YJMR have rigorously investigated topics from musical homiletics to Tibetan Buddhist performing art, from colonial American Psalm-singing to South African Anglicanism, from Black Christian preaching in Chicago to religious identity in Balinese secular music. The YJMR Editorial Board and Yale Institute of Sacred Music are grateful for Leaver’s leadership and expertise in developing YJMR into a vibrant forum “in which the multidimensional relationship between music and religion … can be discussed and disseminated.” Leaver has agreed to remain on the YJMR Editorial Board.
Jeffers L. Engelhardt is associate professor of music and chair of music at Amherst College. He holds a B.M. in piano from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1998) and an M.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago. His research and teaching explore the interdisciplinary relationships between music, religion, secularity, and media studies, especially in Estonia and the post-Soviet Baltic region. Engelhardt’s most recent work includes the coedited volume (with Philip V. Bohlman) Resounding Transcendence: Transitions in Music, Religion, and Ritual (Oxford University Press, 2016) and the monograph Singing the Right Way: Orthodox Christians and Secular Enchantment in Estonia (Oxford University Press, 2014). His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, and the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation.
Engelhardt’s contributions to scholarship at the ISM began with his essay “Inculturation: Genealogies, Meanings, and Musical Dynamics,” published in the ISM journal Colloquium (2006). During a sabbatical in 2016, he joined the ISM community as a Senior Fellow, where he continued his research and taught a course entitled, “Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Religion and Ritual.” He has been serving on the YJMR’s Editorial Board.
“We are grateful to Robin Leaver for his leadership in establishing Yale Journal of Music & Religion as a respected and groundbreaking scholarly journal,” said Martin Jean, director of the ISM, which publishes YJMR. “Jeffers Engelhardt brings a similar commitment to the intersection of music and religion, and we look forward to the expansive and considerable experience that he will bring to this enterprise.”
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