Orientalism And Musical Mission

Orientalism and Musical Mission presents a new way of understanding music's connections with imperialism, drawing on new archive sources and interviews and using the lens of 'mission'. Rachel Beckles Willson demonstrates how institutions such as churches, schools, radio stations and governments, influenced by missions from Europe and North America since the mid-nineteenth century, have consistently claimed that music provides a way of understanding and reforming Arab civilians in Palestine. Beckles Willson discusses the phenomenon not only in religious and developmental aid circles where it has had strong currency, but also in broader political contexts. Plotting a historical trajectory from the late Ottoman and British Mandate eras to the present time, the book sheds new light on relations between Europe, the USA and the Palestinians, and creates space for a neglected Palestinian music history.

Offers a new way of understanding music's connections with Orientalism and imperialism by using the concept of 'mission'.

“OM”, a fundamental meditation sound present in the cultures of Buddhism, is a syllable full of philosophical and transcendental meanings. The category of the Orient, as contrasted, antithetical and complementary to the Occident (West) and its culture, appears to be one of the most interesting and long-lasting issues discussed in the humanities. European fascination with Oriental cultures has found multifaceted manifestations in science, art, fashion and beliefs. Music, as an important element of cultural communication, has always been well suited for transitions and inspirations. The relationship between the Orient and Western music encompasses a wide and fascinating scope of problems, a field of various multidimensional influences which brings an opportunity not only to study particular questions, but also to search for universal and fundamental values. This collection of essays is a result of an International Conference titled “OM: Orient in Music – Music of the Orient”, held at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland, in March 2016. The volume provides insight into the many ways in which the music of the East and West can be understood and treated by both Western and Eastern scholars.

Why teach music? Who deserves a music education? Can making and learning about music serve the common good? A collection of essays considers the answers. In Humane Music Education for the Common Good, scholars and educators from around the world offer unique responses to the recent UNESCO report titled Rethinking Education: Toward the Common Good. This report suggests how, through purpose, policy, and pedagogy, education can and must respond to the challenges of our day in ways that respect and nurture all members of the human family. The contributors use this report as a framework to explore the implications and complexities that it raises. The book begins with analytical reflections on the report and then explores pedagogical case studies and practical models of music education that address social justice, inclusion, individual nurturance, and active involvement in the greater public welfare. The collection concludes by looking to the future, asking what more should be considered, and exploring how these ideals can be even more fully realized. This volume boldly expands the boundaries of the UNESCO report to reveal new ways to think about, be invested in, and use music education as a center for social change both today and going forward.

Musicians’ Migratory Patterns: The Adriatic Coasts contains essays dedicated to the movement of musicians along and across the coasts of the Adriatic Sea. In the course of this book, the musicians become narrators of their own stories seen through the lenses of wanderlust, opportunity, exile, and refuge. Essayists in this collection are scholars hailing from Croatia, Italy, and Greece. They are internationally known for their passionate advocacy of musicians’ migratory rights and faithfulness to the lesson imparted by the history of immigration in the broadest of terms. Spanning the Venetian Republic’s domination, the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the European nationalistic movements of mid-nineteenth century, the shocking outcomes of World War One, and the dramatic shifts of frontiers that continue to occur in our time, the chapters of this book guide the reader on a voyage through the Adriatic Sea—from the Gulf of Venice and the peninsula of Istria, to Albania, the Island of Corfu, and other Ionian outposts.

In Becoming Palestine, Gil Z. Hochberg examines how contemporary Palestinian artists, filmmakers, dancers, and activists use the archive in order to radically imagine Palestine's future. She shows how artists such as Jumana Manna, Kamal Aljafari, Larissa Sansour, Farah Saleh, Basel Abbas, and Ruanne Abou-Rahme reimagine the archive, approaching it not through the desire to unearth hidden knowledge, but to sever the identification of the archive with the past. In their use of archaeology, musical traditions, and archival film and cinematic footage, these artists imagine a Palestinian future unbounded from colonial space and time. By urging readers to think about archives as a break from history rather than as history's repository, Hochberg presents a fundamental reconceptualization of the archive's liberatory potential.

Representation in Western Music offers a comprehensive study of the roles of representation in the composition, performance and reception of Western music. In recent years, there has been increasing academic interest in questions of musical interpretation and meaning and in music's interactions with other artistic media, and yet no book has dealt extensively with representation's important role in these processes. This volume presents new research about musical representation, with particular focus on Western art and popular music from the nineteenth century to the present day. It assembles essays by an international assortment of leading scholars on a range of subjects including instrumental music, opera, popular song, ballet, cinema and the music video. Individual sections address representation, interpretation and musical meaning; music's relationships with visual forms of representation; musical representation in dramatic forms; and the functions of music in the representation of identity.

Since the late 1980s, the boundaries between the ‘musicologies’ have become increasingly blurred. Most notably, a growing number of musicologists have become interested in the ideas and methodologies of ethnomusicology, and in particular, in applying one of the central methodological tools of ethnomusicology – ethnography – to the study of Western ‘art’ music, a tradition which had previously been studied primarily through scores, recordings and other historical sources. Alongside this, since the 1970s a small number of ethnomusicologists have also written about Western art music, thus complicating the idea of ethnomusicology as the study of ‘other’ music. Indeed, there has been a growth in this area of scholarship in recent years. Approaching western art music through the perspectives of ethnomusicology can offer new and enriching insights to the study of this musical tradition, as shown in the writings presented in this book. The current volume is the first collection of essays on this topic and includes work by authors from a range of musicological and ethnomusicological backgrounds, exploring a variety of issues including music in orchestral outreach programmes, new audiences for classical music concerts, music and conflict transformation, ethnographic study of the rehearsal process, and the politics of a high-profile music festival. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnomusicology Forum.