I posted this in the ethnomusicology tribe, but thought it important enough to post as a blog, too.

It's with sadness I have to report the passing of an old friend and Bosnian ethnomusicologist, Minja (Mirjana) Lausevic, who died on July 15th from an "undisclosed recurring illness." We met when I was a MA student at Wesleyan, and she was finishing her PhD and performing with the group Zabe i Babe, a Bosnian pop/rock band she directed. I went to all their shows - it was definitely the coolest music happening in central Connecticut in the mid 90s! She was also an active performer of Sacred Harp music, a style of American singing from the 1700s and 1800s that uses a shape-note notation system and is loud, strident, and quite joyful. In both genres, she was a passionate performer, and was capable of transforming a hall full of dreary and disillusioned New Englanders into a jubilant space, a skill very few performers truly have.

Obituary from the Star Tribune: www.startribune.com/466/stor...5842.html

Her scholarship has focused on two topics: music and politics in Bosnia, and Balkan musicians (native and non-native) in America. A book on the latter just came out through Oxford University Press. Other articles have appeared in edited books. I compiled a bibliography of her works... (there may be others I couldn't locate)

Laušević, Mirjana. 2007. Balkan fascination : creating an alternative music culture in America. New York: Oxford University Press.

-----. 2006. Review of "Sevdah: The Bridge that Survived," Ethnomusicology 50 (1): 176.

-----. 2003. Review of "Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia" by Svanibor Pettan, Ethnomusicology 50 (1): 130-1.

-----. 2000. "Some Aspects of Music and Politics in Bosnia," in Neighbours at War: Anthropological Perspectives on Yugoslavia, edited by J Halpern and D Kideckel. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

-----. 1998. Review of "Music of Southslavie Epics from the Bihac Region of Bosnia" by Stephen Erdely, Notes 55 (2): 463-4.

-----. 1998. A different village: international folk dance and Balkan music and dance in the United States. PhD Dissertation, Wesleyan University.

-----. 1996. "The Ilahiya as a Symbol of Bosnian Muslim National Identity," in Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Mark Slobin. Durham: Duke University Press.

Biography from University of Minnesota's faculty website:
Mirjana Lausevic both lived and studied her subject. Lausevic was born and raised in the multi-ethnic city of Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia. She earned her bachelor's degree in Musicology-Ethnomusicology from Sarajevo University in 1988. Much of her research since that time examined how music has helped both unite and divide ethnic groups in her native Balkans.

Lausevic earned her master's degree (in 1993) and doctorate (in 1998) in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. She published numerous articles based on her fieldwork in the towns and countryside of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and the United States.

Lausevic enjoyed performing music as well as studying it. She once led a traditional Bosnian vocal group named Yu-Etno. In New England, she sang and played keyboard with her group Zabe i Babe, which recorded the compact disc Drumovi (Bison Publishing) and was featured on public television's Exploring Worlds of Music series. She used this performing experience at the School of Music by organizing world music concerts and by exploring how to integrate the University and the community through music.