Upcoming Events

TALK: Listening to Japanese America: Acetate Recordings from the 1930s - 1950s - Mako Kikuchi (South Seattle College)

Mako Kikuchi will discuss and share excerpts from a collection of community-donated acetate recordings that have recently been digitized at the Northwest Nikkei Museum in Seattle, WA. Kikuchi, who is the lead advisor and sound engineer for the project, will speak about Japanese American history and community through the lens of select recordings from the collection. He will also share about future phases of the project, and the impact that the preservation of this sound archive, and others like it, can have on the Japanese American community and beyond. Lastly, Kikuchi will present his creative work, examining how archives can be better understood and "activated" through art and music.

  1. April 22, 2026 - 3:30pm to 5:00pm

The Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music (CISM) is an association of faculty and students at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) that promotes the study of music across academic disciplines. CISM begins with the position that music is an important and powerful cultural practice, which becomes fundamental in shaping the materialities and methods of social life. By sponsoring diverse projects that engage multiple fields of knowledge, CISM works to expand the boundaries of traditional music research by creating an environment for high-level study and discussion of music that is not restricted to specialists.