South African Society for Research in Music

It was established in 2005 through the merger of the Musicological Society of Southern Africa and the Ethnomusicology Symposium, providing a platform for researchers and educators to share knowledge and promote interdisciplinary dialogue.

[1] Prior to SASRIM, the Musicological Society of Southern Africa and the Ethnomusicology Symposium operated as separate entities, each catering to different branches of music scholarship.

Its first executive committee included Douglas Reid as President, George King as Treasurer, Marianne Becker as Secretary, and Mary Rörich as an additional member.

[7] The symposium also attracted a more diverse group of participants, including postgraduate students, independent researchers, missionaries, and scholars of colour, many of whom were previously excluded from mainstream musicological spaces.

[3] The push for greater unity in music research, driven by a growing desire to overcome disciplinary divides, culminated in a historic joint congress held at the University of Cape Town in 2005.

[1] Music scholar Barbara Titus has commented on the symbolic importance of this move, noting that this “initiative to surpass the various musicological factions” can be seen as emerging “from the need to come to terms with a far more destructive form of segregation”.