David C. Osterlund

Ed.D., 1978, Music Education, University of Illinois, Urbana

M.S., 1966, Music Education, University of Wisconsin, Superior

B.S., 1958, Music Education, University of Wisconsin, Superior

In the late 1960s, Dr. David Osterlund brought his young family on an adventure to Ethiopia that would fuel their memories and their world view through to the next generation.  Dr. Osterlund was compelled to hear and to study the music of the tribes, first from his missional background as a preacher’s son, and then within a context of doctoral academic research. That experience under the trees in Africa led to a lifetime of ethnomusicological scholarship and teaching, sharing those songs and that experience with students and future preachers.

Dr. Osterlund’s resume includes education from the Universities of Wisconsin and Illinois. He directed high school bands and marching bands in small towns in Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. Dr. Osterlund held professorship at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and at Columbia International University in South Carolina. Dr. Osterlund entered an ambitious retirement by continuing to teach music and education behind the walls of the Columbia prison system. He continues to lead choirs and teach piano lessons from his home in St. Paul.

With this new publication, these notes that once only sat in a university printed typewritten tome, have now found a new audience. For the first time, the notes and analysis have been combined with the images and audio recordings of these historic settings in the tribal deserts and bush of Ethiopia and the Sudan. Scenes that were then only available by expedition via Land Rover and knowledgeable guides, are now available online, finding interest among not only the current generation of scholarship, but also among the current generation of these tribes who have been displaced and who have resettled apart from their musical history.

Andrew Osterlund, AIA
Raleigh, North Carolina
November 21, 2021