Marcel-Dubois, Claudie (1913-1989)

A pianist by training, born in Paris in 1913, Claudie Marcel-Dubois was recruited in 1934 to the Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro to work as an assistant to the ethnomusicologist André Schaeffner and the museographer Georges Henri Rivière. She is recognised as the founder of ethnomusicology in France. She joined the CNRS in 1943 and spent her career at the Musée national des arts et traditions populaires, where she founded and directed the ethnomusicology department and its sound archives until her retirement in 1981. From 1939 to 1984, her numerous field surveys (1939–1984) enabled her to enrich her scientific production and the museum’s sound and instrumental collections. In 1962, at the request of Claude Lévi-Strauss, she organised the first seminar on general ethnomusicology at the École pratique des hautes études. Through her publications, which include a rich museographic production, she contributed to making so-called “folk” musical and sound practices a true object of anthropological study.

Keywords: Anthropology of France | Ethnomusicology | Second half of the 20^th century | France | Musée national des arts et traditions populaires | Georges Henri Rivière | Marie-Marguerite Pichonnet-Andral