Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures

An Ecological Perspective

Edited by Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant

Presents a dynamic and ecological model to understanding sustainability of music practices
Includes nine in-depth case studies of music cultures at various degrees of vitality by leading experts in the field
Offers guidance to empower communities wishing to develop strategies that help sustain their own music cultures

Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures

An Ecological Perspective

Edited by Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant

Description

The sustainability of music and other intangible expressions of culture has been high on the agenda of scholars, governments and NGOs in recent years. However, there is a striking lack of systematic research into what exactly affects sustainability across music cultures. By analyzing case studies of nine highly diverse music cultures against a single framework that identifies key factors in music sustainability, Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures offers an understanding of both the challenges and the dynamics of music sustainability in the contemporary global environment, and breathes new life into the previously discredited realm of comparative musicology, from an emphatically non-Eurocentric perspective.

Situated within the expanding field of applied ethnomusicology, this book confirms some commonly held beliefs, challenges others, and reveals sometimes surprising insights into the dynamics of music cultures. By examining, comparing and contrasting highly diverse contexts from thriving to 'in urgent need of safeguarding,' Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures analyzes sustainability across five carefully defined domains. The book identifies pathways to strategies and tools that may empower communities to sustain and revitalize their music heritage on their terms. In this way, this book contributes to greater scholarly insight, new (sub)disciplinary approaches, and pathways to improved practical outcomes for the long-term sustainability of music cultures. As such it will be an essential resource for ethnomusicologists, as well as scholars and activists outside of music, with an interest in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage.

Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures

An Ecological Perspective

Edited by Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant

Foreword Anthony Seeger

Chapter 1 Huib Schippers
Sound Futures: Exploring the ecology of sustainability in music

Chapter 2 Catherine Grant
Music sustainability: Strategies and interventions

Chapter 3 James Burns
Southern Ewe dance-drumming: An ethnographic study of performing musicians in contemporary contexts

Chapter 4 Huib Schippers
Hindustani music: Resilience and flexibility in recontextualizing an ancient tradition

Chapter 5 Linda Barwick and Myfany Turpin
Central Australian women's traditional songs: Keeping Yawulyu/Awelye strong

Chapter 6 Peter Dunbar-Hall
Balinese gamelan: Continual innovation, community engagement and links to spirituality as drivers for sustainability

Chapter 7 John Drummond
Western Opera: The price of prestige in a globalized 'total theatre' experience

Chapter 8 Philip Hayward and Sueo Kuwahara
Amami Shima Uta: Sustaining a vernacular popular island music in the shadow of mainstream Japanese culture

Chapter 9 Keith Howard
SamulNori: Sustaining an emerging Korean percussion tradition

Chapter 10 Patricia Shehan Campbell with Leticia Isabel Soto Flores
Mariachi music: Pathway to expressing Mexican musical identity

Chapter 11 Esbjörn Wettermark and Håkan Lundström
Ca trù: The revival and repositioning of a Vietnamese music tradition

Chapter 12 Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant
Approaching music cultures as ecosystems: A dynamic model for understanding and supporting sustainability

Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures

An Ecological Perspective

Edited by Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant

Author Information

Professor Huib Schippers has broad, hands-on experience of more than forty years in the practice and study of world music, ethnomusicology and music education. He is a recognised leader of action research projects focusing on cultural diversity, and was responsible for establishing the World Music & Dance Centre (Rotterdam, 1996-2006) and the innovative Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre (Brisbane, 2003-2015).

Dr Catherine Grant is a former Endeavour Australia Research Fellow and recipient of Australia's Future Justice medal for her work on issues of music endangerment and sustainability. Her book Music Endangerment: How Language Maintenance can Help was published in 2014 by Oxford University Press.

Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures

An Ecological Perspective

Edited by Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant

Reviews and Awards

"this volume stands as an excellent work of high scholarly integrity. The editors and contributors successfully address many topics of immediate relevance to applied ethnomusicology and folklore studies with an impressive methodological cohesion and theoretical coherency." -- Alexander Karvelas, University of California, Santa Barbara, Journal of Folklore Research

"Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective is a pivotal publication that will spark more socially engaged, purposeful front-loading of music research. It will be an important scholarly reference point for many years to come."--Daniel Sheehy, Director & Curator Emeritus, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

"This book is a methodological game changer for ethnomusicology."--Deborah Wong, University of California, Riverside

"The articles all employ accessible writing styles, and could be adopted for upper-level undergraduate and graduate ethnomusicology seminars. It is a particularly welcome addition, with applied ethnomusicology and public musicology seminars increasing in number. Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures contributes new approaches to the study of the ecology of music, providing a nuanced methodological framework that makes examining music cultures from an ecological perspective more concrete and comparative." --MusiCultures