Director of the museum, Father Abraham Lotha alluded to the popular statement that ‘Nagas have music in their blood.’ “At present, there are no cultural institutions, colleges or universities in Nagaland where one can research the broad and diverse range of Naga ethnic music. The Naga Ethnomusic Center at Chumpo Museum will address this need,” he said in a note today. Beginning in 2010, the Naga Ethnomusic Center at Chumpo Museum has started to collect and document and archive all genres of Naga music—from traditional to modern folk and pop music. “As of October 2010, the Ethnomusic Center has collected over two thousand Naga folk songs from many Naga tribes,” father Lotha said.
Naga musicians are invited to donate their work to be archived in the center for researchers, ethnomusicologists, future Naga generations, and for the preservation and understanding of Naga culture and art.
The Naga Ethnomusic Center will build and archive a collection of Naga music for future generations, promote the study of the diverse body of Naga music, provide access and consultation to researchers of the ethnic history and origin of Naga music; offer contextual, sociocultural interpretations about the complexities of Naga music, foster interaction between musicians and listeners to better understand and appreciate the indigenous art forms of Naga music and invite Nagas to come to “listen to and more fully appreciate their own music history.” The Naga Ethnomusic Center at the Chumpo Museum will be formally inaugurated at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, 25th November, 2010. Among others, the program will feature a leaf instrumental.