This meeting ends my term as interim president of the Southern California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology and begins my term as "legitimate" president with Fred Lau as Vice President. Last October, I represented SEMSCC at the Annual Meeting of SEM in Bloomington, Indiana. Our Chapter was once again cited for the quality of our website and email list. Although I was unable to attend the entire conference because of other commitments, I was very gratified to notice that Southern California was well represented at the meeting, both among students and faculty.

I want to thank the various people involved in making the 1999 Meeting of SEMSCC possible. We couldn't have done without the support of the UCR Department of Music, especially our chair, Philip Brett, and the dean of our college, Carlos Velez-Ibanez--they helped sponsor the concert and the coffee and snacks, as well as provided facilities and staff support. Conferences, even relatively small ones like ours, involve a great deal of organizational effort. The people that make it all happen often do the work behind the scenes and without expecting recognition for their work. However, I think I should name names. First and foremost, I want to thank our secretary-treasurer, Louise Spear, who (as usual) has assisted us with her many skills as manager, accountant, and secretary. Without Louise's wisedom, vast experience, and patient help, we'd be in serious trouble. Louise has been the pillar on which SEMSCC rests.

I want to thank our program committee, ably chaired by Nancy Guy and assisted by UCLA graduate student Jonathan Ritter, for an excellent job in organizing the panels for the meeting. They managed to put panels together in such a way that individual papers could speak to issues raised by other papers and inspire a real exchange of ideas.

Last and not least, I want to thank our local arrangements committee, chair by Deborah Wong and assisted by graduate student Eric Usner. Deborah did an amazing job of organizing the various details of this conference, ranging from setting up last night's concert to creating maps and lists of hotels and restaurants for all of you.

I'd like to call on all ethnomusicology faculty members that did not come to this year's meeting to make it a point to attend next year's meeting wherever it might be. I think that it is absolutely crucial for faculty to support their students by attending annual chapter meetings. I received notes from colleagues sending their regrets because they are busy with writing their books or involved in other more pressing departmental duties. It is true, we are all very busy. But the chapter meetings represent one of the few opportunities we have to get together and exchange ideas, to affirm our collective ifdentity as a community of scholars. These meetings are, for most graduate students, an introduction to the world of professional scholarship. Faculty should stand behind their students by being there when they present their research in a public forum.

To close my report, I want to announce that I will be stepping down as president next year. Although I am scheduled to serve until the year 2001, I will have been, in effect, president of the chapter for more than two years. I think that the chapter should have some new blood. And, I need to set aside some time for my own work which has languished far too long. I hope that you will understand, and during the next twelve months think about who you'd like to nominate for president at the SEMSCC meeting in Y2K.

Respectfully submitted,

René T.A. Lysloff