Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) - American Institute of Indian Studies

History and Founding

The Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) was established in 1982 as a division of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), a consortium of over 50 major U.S. universities. The impetus for its creation was to repatriate recordings of Indian music and oral traditions held in archives abroad and to stimulate the study of ethnomusicology in India. ARCE is located on the AIIS campus in Gurugram (formerly Gurgaon), Haryana, at 22, Sector 32, HUDA Institutional Area. The Centre has been directed for many years by Dr. Shubha Chaudhuri, who has shaped its development into one of the world's premier audiovisual repositories for South Asian performing arts.

Collections and Holdings

ARCE holds over 270 voluntarily deposited field-recording collections totaling some 25,000 hours of audio and video recordings. These span classical music, folk traditions, regional genres, popular film music, and oral performance from across the Indian subcontinent. The oldest materials in the collection date from the 1930s, including recordings by Arnold Bake and Fox Strangways from 1902. All recordings are stored in a climate-controlled vault and documented in a computerized catalog accessible to scholars. In addition to field recordings, ARCE maintains an extensive collection of published commercial recordings from 78 rpm discs to CDs. The reference library holds approximately 10,000 books plus journals, dissertations, offprints, and newspaper clippings focused on ethnomusicology and related disciplines with a regional emphasis on India.

Notable Materials and Media Relevance

Selected tracks from ARCE's holdings are available for paid download through Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, from which performers receive royalties. ARCE has collaborated on projects documenting endangered music traditions in West Rajasthan, funded by the U.S. Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation, and on community partnership projects in Rajasthan and Goa supported by the Ford Foundation. The archive has also partnered with India Foundation for the Arts on archival fellowships for creative practitioners.

Access and Usage

The archives and library are open Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Visitors are requested to make an appointment in advance for listening and viewing sessions. ARCE's audiovisual laboratory provides facilities for making preservation, working, and research copies of materials. An online catalog at aiis-arce.org allows researchers worldwide to search holdings and access sample recordings where available. Access to collections respects professional ethical standards, artist and collector wishes, and Indian copyright legislation.

Programs and Outreach

ARCE regularly conducts seminars, workshops, and training programs in ethnomusicology and audiovisual archiving. It operates a publication program producing books and recordings, and has hosted well-received events such as the Remembered Rhythms festival on the Indian diaspora. The Centre serves as a model for comparable archives internationally and is a member of a network of audiovisual archives in India.