When musicologist Sarah Fuchs stumbled across a mysterious set of wax cylinder recordings from a Parisian school for the deaf, she had no idea how deep the archive would go. In this episode, she chats with Sydney Hutchinson about early recording technologies, opera at a distance, and what it means to truly listen—especially when sound itself is contested. From 19th-century jukeboxes to the ethics of hearing someone else's history, this conversation asks: how do we make sense of voices from the past?

In Playing the Archive, ethnomusicologist Sydney Hutchinson and guests dive into experimental archival research with interviews, radio plays, & more. This podcast is a part of the Second World Music project and the episode was co-edited by Keyania Campbell. To learn more, visit http://secondworldmusic.wordpress.com.

Playing the Archive © 2025 by Sydney Hutchinson/Second World Music is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International