1st Edition

Finding Democracy in Music

Edited By Robert Adlington, Esteban Buch Copyright 2020
222 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

222 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

222 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

For a century and more, the idea of democracy has fuelled musicians’ imaginations. Seeking to go beyond music’s proven capacity to contribute to specific political causes, musicians have explored how aspects of their practice embody democratic principles. This may involve adopting particular approaches to compositional material, performance practice, relationships to audiences, or modes of... Read more

Introduction: looking for democracy in music and elsewhere

ROBERT ADLINGTON AND ESTEBAN BUCH

1. ‘Unsociable sociability’: orchestras, conflict and democratic politics in Finland after 1917

TINA K. RAMNARINE

2. Dismantling borders, assembling hierarchies: Percy Grainger and the idea of democracy

RYAN WEBER

3. How democratic is jazz

BENJAMIN GIVAN

4. Curating difference: Elliott Carter and democracy

ROBERT ADLINGTON

5. Getting exercised: ensemble relations in Christian Wolff’s Exercises

EMILY PAYNE AND PHILIP THOMAS

6. Defining audible democracy: new music in post-dictatorship Argentina

VIOLETA NIGRO GIUNTA

7. Network music and digital utopianism: the rise and fall of the Res Rocket Surfer project, 1994–2003

CHRISTOPHER HAWORTH

8. As the band hit full throttle: live event, mediatization and collective identification in popular music concert films

ALESSANDRO BRATUS

9. Reinventing audiences: imagining radical musical democracies

GEORGINA BORN

Biography

Robert Adlington holds the Queen’s Anniversary Prize Chair in Contemporary Music at the University of Huddersfield. He is the author of books on Harrison Birtwistle, Louis Andriessen, and avant-garde music in 1960s Amsterdam, and has edited volumes on avant-garde music and the sixties, music and communism, and (in the present book series) New Music Theatre in Europe (Routledge, 2019).

Esteban Buch is Professor of Music History at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His latest books include Trauermarsch. L’Orchestre de Paris dans l’Argentine de la dictature (Seuil, 2016) and, as a co-editor, Composing for the State: Music in Twentieth Century Dictatorships (Routledge, 2016).