Ethnomusicologist Martin Hatch, professor of music emeritus, dies at 83 | Cornell Chronicle

"From 1980 until his retirement in 2011, Hatch taught in the Department of Music and the Department of Asian Studies, specializing in the musical traditions of Africa and Asia, music theory, the history of American music, and ethnomusicology. He founded the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble in 1972 and the Cornell Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Music Ensemble in 2001 and was active with the Cornell Southeast Asia Program and Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia."

"Devoting his career to the study and teaching of Indonesian music, particularly the gamelan traditions of Java and Bali, Hatch was influential in the field of Indonesian studies, helping to introduce Indonesian music and culture to generations of American students and university music programs across the country."

"He encouraged his colleagues and students alike to hear all the different kinds of music that already enlivened Ithaca and its environs, and he devoted his efforts to increasing the diverse musical idioms and traditions that would - and still do - resound in Lincoln's practice rooms, rehearsal halls and classrooms."

"Marty's teaching linked scholarly inquiry with hands-on practice, and he founded and resourced most of Cornell's non-Western ensembles, always with an eye beyond teaching the notes. Music making became a vehicle to deepen students' cultural understanding and, ultimately, empathy. Marty was a humanitarian through and through."

Martin F. Hatch Jr., Ph.D., was professor of music emeritus at Cornell who taught from 1980 until retirement in 2011 and died Aug. 23 in Ithaca at age 83. He specialized in the musical traditions of Africa and Asia, music theory, the history of American music, and ethnomusicology. He founded the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble in 1972 and the Cornell Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Music Ensemble in 2001, and he participated in the Cornell Southeast Asia Program and Kahin Center. He devoted his career to Indonesian music, especially the gamelan traditions of Java and Bali, and helped introduce those traditions to generations of American students and university programs. He was born Dec. 17, 1941, in Philadelphia, grew up in Drexel Hill, attended Wesleyan University, and earned his Ph.D. in music at Cornell.

Read at Cornell Chronicle