SOAS Studies in Music is today one of the world’s leading series in the discipline of ethnomusicology. Our core mission is to produce high-quality, ethnographically rich studies of music-making in the world’s diverse musical cultures. We publish monographs and edited volumes that explore musical repertories and performance practice, critical issues in ethnomusicology, sound studies, historical and analytical approaches to music across the globe. We recognize the value of applied, interdisciplinary and collaborative research, and our authors draw on current approaches in musicology and anthropology, psychology, media and gender studies. We welcome monographs that investigate global contemporary, classical and popular musics, the effects of digital mediation and transnational flows.
Editorial Board
Professor Kwasi Ampene
University of Michigan, USA
Professor Linda Barwick
University of Sydney, AU
Dr. Angela Impey
SOAS University of London, UK
Professor Travis A. Jackson
University of Chicago, USA
Professor Noriko Manabe
Temple University, USA
Dr. Moshe Morad
Tel Aviv University, IL
Professor Suzel Reily
Universidade Estadual de Campinas, BR
Professor Henry Spiller
University California - Davis, USA
Professor Martin Stokes
Kings College London, UK
Professor Richard Widdess
SOAS University of London, UK
Edited
By Alison McQueen Tokita, Joys H. Y. Cheung
March 31, 2023
This book explores art song as an emblem of musical modernity in early twentieth century East Asia and Australia. It appraises the lyrical power of art song—a solo song set to a poem in the local language in Western art music style accompanied by piano—as a vehicle for creating a localized musical ...
By Heather Sparling
December 30, 2022
Disaster Songs as Intangible Memorials in Atlantic Canada draws on a collection of over 600 songs relating to Atlantic Canadian disasters from 1891 up until the present and describes the characteristics that define them as intangible memorials. The book demonstrates the relationship between ...
By William Tallotte
December 30, 2022
Music and Temple Ritual in South India: Performing for Śiva documents the musical practices of the periya mēḷam, a South Indian instrumental ensemble of professional musicians who perform during the rituals and festivals of high-caste (Brahmanical) Tamil Hindu temples dedicated to the Pan-Indian ...
Edited
By Katelyn Barney
December 22, 2022
This book demonstrates the processes of intercultural musical collaboration and how these processes contribute to facilitating positive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia. Each of the chapters in this edited collection examines specific examples in diverse ...
By Henry Spiller
November 30, 2022
Archaic Instruments in Modern West Java: Bamboo Murmurs explores how current residents of Bandung, Indonesia, have (re-)adopted bamboo musical instruments to forge meaningful bridges between their past and present—between traditional and modern values. Although it focuses specifically on Bandung, ...
Edited
By Julian Fifer, Angela Impey, Peter G. Kirchschlaeger, Manfred Nowak, George Ulrich
May 31, 2022
The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights is a collection of case studies spanning a wide range of concerns about music and human rights in response to intensifying challenges to the well-being of individuals, peoples, and the planet. It brings forward the expertise of academic researchers,...
By Jessica Cawley
April 29, 2022
Coupling the narratives of twenty-two Irish traditional musicians alongside intensive field research, Becoming an Irish Traditional Musician explores the rich and diverse ways traditional musicians hone their craft. It details the educational benefits and challenges associated with each learning ...
By Ioannis Tsioulakis
April 29, 2022
Musicians in Crisis is a music ethnography of contemporary Athens, before and during the infamous economic and political crisis. It spans two contrasting periods in Greece: the last few years of relative economic prosperity and social cohesion (2005–2009) and the following period of austerity and ...
By Barbara Alge
July 29, 2021
Gold, Festivals, and Music in Southeast Brazil: Sounding Portugueseness is a study of the musical legacy of the eighteenth century Brazilian gold rush that integrates ethnographic research of the main genres of former mining communities in Brazil – from liturgical music in the style of European art...
By Dwight Reynolds
December 31, 2020
The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus is a critical account of the history of Andalusian music in Iberia from the Islamic conquest of 711 to the final expulsion of the Moriscos (Spanish Muslims converted to Christianity) in the early 17th century. This volume presents the documentation that has come ...
By Nili Belkind
October 16, 2020
Music in Conflict studies the complex relationship of musical culture to political life in Palestine-Israel, where conflict has both shaped and claimed the lives of Palestinians and Jews. In the context of the geography of violence that characterizes the conflict, borders and boundaries are ...
Edited
By Keith Howard, Catherine Ingram
July 24, 2020
Presence Through Sound narrates and analyses, through a range of case studies on selected musics of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Tibet, some of the many ways in which music and ‘place’ intersect and are interwoven with meaning in East Asia. It explores how place is significant to the many ...
