Scholar to Speak on Sound and Decolonization in California

The American Music Research Center (AMRC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder’s College of Music is hosting a lecture, “Mission Sensoriums:

Spanish Colonization, Church Bells, and the California Indians” by Bernard Gordillo Brockman (Yale Institute of Sacred Music) on 14 March 2022.

Although the mission bells along El Camino Real and at California’s 21 Spanish Missions are a staple of the state’s tourism industry, for California’s Indigenous people they are a sonic and visual reminder of the traumas of colonization, slavery, and genocide. In a recent NPR interview, Valentin Lopez, Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, wondered “why do we have to look at those bells every day and have that reminder?” 

Gordillo’s interest in California’s mission bells began as part of the University of California’s Critical Mission Studies project which seeks to “(re)write the history of California Missions from Native perspectives through collaborative endeavors.” CMS is entirely led my Native board and committee members, and its work has engendered conversations about Indigenous history throughout California and elsewhere. Though he first wanted to contribute to the broader field of mission music studies, Gordillo found himself drawn to the auditory environment outside mission churches as key to understanding Spanish colonization in California.  

Employing historical and archival methodologies and working in close consultation with Indigenous communities, leaders, and scholars, Gordillo hopes to bring an accurate account of the missions while also honoring the history, testimony, and experience of California’s Indigenous people. Bridging sound studies, Indigenous

studies, religious studies, and Latin American Studies, Gordillo’s work looks at the mission bells as a “nexus for situating sound and meaning within the spread of Western Christianity via Spanish colonization within the Americas.”

In addition to his work on California mission bells, Gordillo is currently at work on a book project, Canto de Marte: Art Music, Popular Culture, and the US Intervention in Nicaragua (under contract with Oxford University Press). He is also a professional harpsichordist and has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Long Beach Opera, and the Canadian chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roi. 

Please join the AMRC and Professor Gordillo on 14 March 2022 in Chamber Hall (S102) in the Imig Music Building at 1:00 pm. The talk is free, and no ticket is required. This is a hybrid event and people may attend virtually as well. To register for the Zoom, click here. This lecture is part of the Musicology Colloquium Series, sponsored by the College of Music’s American Music Research Center.