James R. Cowdery

Senior Editor, Bibliolore Editor

RILM International Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3108
New York, NY 10016-4309

email: jcowdery@rilm.org

As Senior Editor, James R. Cowdery represents the field of ethnomusicology in RILM Abstracts; he maintains RILM’s blog, Bibliolore. He is also the editor of The RILM Manual of Style.

Cowdery has served as Editor-in-Chief of Ethnomusicology and as a consultant and writer for the PBS television series Exploring the World of Music; his publications include The Melodic Tradition of Ireland (Kent State University Press, 1990), articles in several encyclopedias and journals, and, as co-author, the textbook Exploring the World of Music (Kendall Hunt, 1999). He was elected First Vice President of the Society for Ethnomusicology for the 2011–2013 term, and has served twice on the society’s council. As a composer, Cowdery has received commissions from the Long Island Choral Society and Meet the Composer, and his works have received premieres in New York City, Tokyo, and Budapest. He also performed Irish, Scottish, English, and American traditional musics throughout the U.S. and Canada from the 1970s through the 1990s. Cowdery received a PhD from Wesleyan University in 1985.