In 1976 SEM established a Distinguished Lecture as the centerpiece of its annual meeting. Charles Seeger was the first Distinguished Lecturer and in 1983, after his death, the lecture was named in his honor. Each year the SEM Board selects for the lecture a leading ethnomusicologist or scholar from a related discipline to reflect on the history of ethnomusicology and to offer insights on current directions in the field. Select the names below to learn more about past lecturers.

• 1976. Charles Seeger
  "The Musicological Juncture"
  
• 1977. Mieczyslaw Kolinski
  "The Structure of Music: Diversification versus Constraint"
  
• 1978. David P. McAllester
  "The Astonished Ethno-muse"
  
• 1979. Gilbert Rouget
  Scheduled, but later cancelled
  
• 1980. Alan P. Merriam
  Scheduled, but passed away before. Memorial addresses: Steven Wild ("Alan P. Merriam, Professor”) and Bruno Nettl ("Alan P. Merriam: Scholar and Leader")
  
• 1981. Klaus Wachsmann
  "The Changeability of Musical Experience"
• 1982. George List
  "A Secular Sermon for Those of the Ethnomusicological Faith"
• 1983. Bruno Nettl
  "In Honor of Our Principal Teachers"
• 1984. Jose Maceda
  "A Concept of Time in a Music of Southeast Asia"
• 1985. Barbara Krader
  "Slavic Folk Music: Forms of Singing and Self-Identity
• 1986. Barbara B. Smith
  "Some Interrelationships of Variability, Change, and the Learning of Music"
• 1987. Hugo Zemp
  "Filming Music and Looking at Music Films"
• 1988. Howard Becker
  "Sociology and Ethnomusicology"
• 1989. J.H. Kwabena Nketia
  "Contextual Strategies of Enquiry and Systemization"
• 1990. Edward T. Hall
  "Improvisation, Play, and Culture"
• 1991. Krister Malm
  "Music on the Move: Traditions and Mass Media"
• 1992. James Clifford
  "Sites of Crossing: Borders and Diasporas in Expressive Culture"
• 1993. Bess Lomax Hawes
  "Reminiscences and Exhortations: Growing Up in American Folk Music"
• 1994. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
  "Theorizing Heritage"
• 1995. Nazir Jairazbhoy
  "Multimedia presentation"
• 1996. Jean-Jacques Nattiez
  "Inuit Throat-Games and Siberian Throat Singing: A Comparative, Historical, and Semiological Approach"
• 1997. Adelaida Reyes
  "From Urban Area to Refugee Camp: How One Thing Leads to Another"
• 1998. Gerhard Kubik
  "Interconnectedness in Ethnomusicological Research"
• 1999. Ki Mantle Hood
  "Ethnomusicology's Bronze Age in Y2K"
• 2000. Arjun Appadurai
  "Remake, Recall, Remix: Globalization and the Aesthetics of Repetition"
• 2001. William Malm
  "Fifty Years Among the Natives: A Personal History of SEM"
• 2002. William Ferris
  "Music, Memory, and Sense of Place in the American South"
• 2003. Judith Becker
  "Trancers and Deep Listeners"
• 2004. Rayna Green
  "Trad, Rad and Baaaad!: Lead Singer of the Native Punk Rockers, the Meaningless Vocables, Talks about the Future of Native Songs, Pots, and People"
• 2005. Anthony Seeger
  "Lost Lineages and Neglected Peers: Ethnomusicologists Outside Academia"
• 2006. Adrienne L. Kaeppler
  ""The Beholder's Share": Viewing Music and Dance in a Globalized World"
• 2007. Bill Ivey
  "Ethnomusicology and the 21st Century Music Scene"
• 2008. Robert Garfias
  "Diffused and Scattered Light: A Personal Perspective"
• 2009. Steven Feld
  "Acoustemologies"
• 2010. George Lipsitz
  "Midnight at the Barrelhouse: Music and Collective Memory in Los Angeles"
• 2011. Randy Martin
  "Complex Harmonic Movements: Politicalities of Music and Dance"
• 2012. Portia K. Maultsby
  "‘Everybody Wanna Sing My Blues...Nobody Wanna Live My Blues’: Deconstructing Narratives of Race, Culture and Power in African American Music Scholarship.”
• 2013. Sherry Ortner.
  "The Cultural Production of a Field of Cultural Production."
• 2014. Mark Slobin.
  "Improvising a Musical Metropolis: Detroit, 1940s-1960s."
• 2015. Philip J. Deloria.
  "Life on the Musical Edges."
• 2016: Ellen Koskoff.
  "My Music."
• 2017: Dr. Scheherazade Qassim Hassan.
  "The Social Space of Music Traditions in Baghdad Before and After Destruction"
• 2018: Kay Kaufman Shelemay.
  "Ethnography as a Way of Life"