María Ester Grebe Vicuña (July 11, 1928 – November 1, 2012) was a Chilean anthropologist and

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

focusing on the Indigenous peoples of Chile.

Biography

María Ester Grebe was born in 1928 in

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The city is the ca ...

, Chile. She studied musicology at the

University of Chile The University of Chile () is a public university, public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

, graduating with a bachelor's in 1965. After further studies at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

and

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

in the late 1960s, then the University of Chile in the 1970s, she received a doctorate in musicology from

Queen's University Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

, in 1980. Grebe had a long career as an anthropologist. She primarily researched the indigenous peoples of Chile, traveling up and down the country to attend festivals and ceremonies, and interviewing a wide variety of subjects. A longtime professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chile, she taught there until her retirement in 2008. She also worked within the Department of Medicine, studying

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

traditional medicine, but she is best known for her work in the field of ethnomusicology, studying the musical traditions of the Mapuche and other Indigenous peoples of Chile. On two occasions, in 1964 and 1977, she was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

to pursue her musicological research. She published several books, notably 1998's ''Culturas indígenas de Chile: un estudio preliminar'' ("Indigenous Cultures of Chile: A Preliminary Study") and 1967's ''The Chilean Verso: A Study in Musical Archaism''. In 2012, Ethnomedia released a two-volume collection of recordings produced by Grebe in Indigenous communities in northern Chile, titled ''Aymara 1976-1977'' and ''Aymara 1976-1983''. She died a few months later, at age 84, in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

. On her death, anthropologist Mauricio Pineda of Ethnomedia called her "one of the continent's most distinguished ethnomusicologists." The Archivo María Ester Grebe Vicuña has continued to release ethnographic recordings from her archives since her death.

References

External links

The María Ester Grebe Vicuña Archive
(in Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Grebe, Maria Ester 1928 births 2012 deaths People from Arica Chilean women anthropologists Women ethnomusicologists University of Chile alumni Academic staff of the University of Chile Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Chilean anthropologists Chilean ethnomusicologists 20th-century anthropologists 21st-century anthropologists