The ongoing political turmoil in Turkey is reflected in many areas of the cultural landscape, including the processes of music-making. With its immensely rich musical and cultural legacy that combines a rural and urban heritage, Istanbul has become home to many subcultures revolving around a variety of ethnicities and political acts. While the neoliberal urban control and gentrification agenda of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government is reshaping the cultural life in the city; a do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude in the music scene removed the barriers of a hierarchy of production while creating unique performance spaces and a sense of belonging and solidarity among its participants. This essay intends to examine the influence of authoritarian politics on the formation of DIY initiatives in Istanbul’s indie music scene. I will concentrate on the period of 2013–2020, the start date signifying the paradigm shift that the Gezi Park protests (May 27–August 20, 2013) fostered, and the end date signifies the decline of the active music scene, with the COVID-19 pandemic preventing live music altogether. This project is a result of fieldwork conducted as a participant-observer of the scene, in addition to structured and semi-structured interviews. The results of the research will be discussed with a focus on the influence of the Islamist, neoliberal, and authoritarian politics of the government on the indie music scene of Istanbul.
This article looks at Gerhard Gundermann’s use of the Krabat motif from Jurij Brězan’s novel Krabat or the Transformation of the World in his Liedertheater productions with Brigade Feuerstein in the GDR and, post-unification, in his solo songs. From Hoyerswerda in South-East Germany, Gundermann was simultaneously an open-cast miner and a singer/songwriter and dramatist who died prematurely in 1998 at the age of 43. Emerging out of the GDR singing club movement in the late 1970s, he relentlessly exposed the ruling SED Party’s monopoly on power in his work with Brigade Feuerstein. After German unification, as a solo performer, he became the mouthpiece of culturally disenfranchised East Germans. Twenty-five years after his death—in the wake of renewed interest in this performer as evidenced by Andreas Dresen’s film Gundermann (2018) and Grit Lemke’s documentary Gundermann Revier (2019)—it is time for a proper academic assessment of his work. This study breaks new ground, firstly in its analysis of the unpublished works of Brigade Feuerstein and secondly by exploring the extent to which Gundermann’s life work was underpinned by the philosophy of Krabat, in its exposing of humans’ exploitation of one another and their environment. In this, one can see how Gundermann created an aesthetic approach that successfully spanned two political systems.
Within the shifting and highly politicized accreditation of heroes in Zimbabwe, never has the investiture of hero status sparked as much public debate as has the posthumous honor of Zimdancehall artiste, Soul Jah Love. Traditionally applied to political luminaries, the conferment of hero status on arts icons is not novel in Zimbabwe; at least, the accreditation of seasoned artistes like Oliver Mtukudzi, Simon Chimbetu and Dickson Chinx Chingaira furnishes the proof. And now, Soul is also among the “prophets”! A young artiste, with a relatively lean musical career, and of a controversial moral clout, finds himself read in the same scope with the country’s elite liberation heroes—pamamonya ipapo (among the giants)! Soul Jah Love divided public opinion when he was alive just as he did on his death (Antonio 2021). This makes the bestowal of such an honor fiercely contentious. One questions the intelligence that comes up with such decisions and the integrity of the stencil used. Is it on merit? Is it political allegiance or even expediency? Are reality definers consistent in their award of such honors? Is this a redefinition or trivialization of heroic contribution? However, a patient navigation of the lyrical contours and the complexity of social and political messages embedded in Soul Jah Love’s music spurs a second thought for the artiste, the music, and for the award. A flawed genius, a case of golden messages stashed in cursed vessels—music’s version of Dambudzo Marechera? Few may have considered the referential weight of his music and the relevance of his style to his generation of audience and fellow musicians. Consequently, this paper discusses the dynamics of investiture of liberation hero emblem and the political currents that might have been considered in “liberalizing” the liberation stencil to accord Soul Jah Love access to the sacred space. Soul Jah Love’s song “Pamamonya ipapo” (among the giants) can be contrasted with the biblical allusion “Is Saul also among the prophets?” to project a sense of surprise at Saul’s prophetic debut in the company of a band of ‘seasoned’ prophets (1 Samuel 10:11, 12 N.I.V).
This article explores Dutch-German Composer Cord Meijering’s (b. 1955) intercultural translation practices in his piece Marsyas for Percussion Solo Symphony, which premiered in Darmstadt in 2019. This work is based on Greek mythology and the history of the Korean Independence Movement with Eastern and Western percussion. The above-mentioned premiere occurred on the 100th anniversary of the Korean Independence Movement and received intense acclaim from the international audience. However, although Meijering interprets Korean history using a comparison with a Greek myth, he produces a cultural jetlag by replacing the relationship between the dominant and subordinate with the relationship between God and humans. He supplements his understanding of Korean history during the compositional process in cooperation with Korean percussionist Eunbi Jeong. By thoroughly discussing the text of the Declaration of Independence with her, applying traditional Korean percussion instruments, and performing techniques, I argue that Meijering has been able to produce a piece which delivers the spirit of the Korean Independence Movement to an international audience. By reviewing the audience’s reception of the piece, I present how Meijering searched for the modern history of Korea, apart from the influence of his Western cultural roots, and how he represented Korean historic-political events within a Western symphonic form by advancing Korean traditional music. In contemplating the potential of reflexive globalism, this paper raises questions regarding how he in exploring Korea, reevaluates non-Western cultures with a reflective consciousness, acknowledging and respecting the values and heritage inherent in this culture.
This article proposes a method for mapping the class location of classical musicians. I take an important aspect of class—labor—to show how we can understand classical music within the context of capitalist societies. Bringing labor to the forefront implicitly critiques notions of music as somehow not work. It also more properly locates classical musicians within class structures of capitalist societies, while acknowledging the fact that many classical musicians do not work to produce surplus value. My article reviews the ethnomusicological and musicological literature on class and classical music to demonstrate the consequences of omitting labor and class from the field. I then build on more recent studies as well as a large body of overlooked sociological research that demonstrates the value of different approaches to class and labor. From this, I advocate for a relational approach to class wherein people’s occupations determine their class locations. Here, Marx’s understandings of labor are useful. At the same time, they can provide an overly rigid approach to class. I therefore develop a neo-Marxist approach to class, labor, and classical music by drawing on the work of Erik Olin Wright. By locating classical musicians in a class structure via labor, I demonstrate that—in terms of their labor relations—most are actually working class. This stands in sharp contrast to how both musicians and scholars have described classical music as somehow middle class. Finally, I suggest possible avenues for future research, especially the need for empirical studies of the relationships between labor, management, and wealthy donors in classical music.
In this paper, I explore public performances in protest as a form of civic participation, especially for performances that aim to challenge and critique two controversial laws in Hong Kong, the Anthem Law and the Anti-Extradition Law. I focus on how arguments presented in the protest are performed in public, particularly on how participants make use of their voices and bodies in improvised and choreographed ways. I focus on two examples. The first is a series of “flash mob” events organized by the pro-democracy political party, Demosistō, who performed and parodied the national anthem, “March of the Volunteers”. The second example is a public assembly during the Anti-Extradition Law movement, where protestors used laser pointers to transform a protest space into a disco-like dance floor. I read these cases in dialogue with scholarship on performativity by Judith Butler, Richard Schechner, Jorge Cadena-Roa and Cristina Puga. I focus on how protestors navigate identity through performing with music in public space, where civic engagement manifests as bodily movements, sound and voices.
Musicians, scholars, and even reference materials are surprisingly united in the contention that music and politics occupy separate spheres in Canada. However, we suggest that denying the intersection of music and politics in Canada potentially blinds us to the complex ways in which artists, mediators, and audiences—that is, produsers—participate in projects that are undeniably ideological. Indeed, we suggest that appreciating the entwined relationship of music, politics, people, and contexts for circulation is particularly important at a moment when the participatory culture that prevails on social media platforms is increasingly normalised and the authority of established knowledge sources breaks down in the face of “controlless” circulations of content that radically challenge our capacities to communicate across partisan lines. Our analysis takes the form of three case studies: Tony Turner’s “Harperman” (2015), Adrian Sutherland’s “Politician Man” (2019), and Brock Tyler’s “Speaking Moistly” (2020). Our analysis interprets each example according to musical form, lyrics, creator intentions, and genre affiliations but, critically, also addresses how contexts for circulation, curation by produsers, and the affect of musicking illuminates kaleidoscopic meanings that accrue through the complex interactions of music and politics—meanings, notably, that cannot be discerned through a focus on the musical object or political landscape alone.
As Turkey’s ruling elite founded a nation from the collapsed Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s, competitions for the Turkish national anthem’s lyrics and musical setting did not immediately yield clear winners. The original winning composition by Ali Rıfat Çağatay draws on Ottoman-era musical and literary conventions; however, the anthem was redacted six years after selection and replaced in 1930 by the current national anthem by Osman Zeki Üngör, a work iconic of European anthems yet infamous for its “broken” prosody. The anthem’s prosodic errors and enigmatic selection process have fueled national debates since its adoption. I argue that the Turkish ruling elite’s selection of a national anthem reflects the challenges of a broader nation-building project premised on rejecting a presumed Ottoman past and oriented towards the modernity associated with the imagined West. More broadly, I assert that understanding the anthem genre requires interrogating the Eurocentrism of non-European anthems that would seem to seek to emulate European exemplars. Exploring nearly a century of anthem controversies in Turkish media and film illuminates how prosodic errors have served as an innocuous proxy for politically sensitive topics, including tensions over religion in public life and governance as well as the Turkey-US relationship since the Cold War. On the other hand, the many-layered meanings within the anthem as well as its iconicity of the nation have enabled those acting in the name of the state to deploy the anthem as a tool of violent state coercion to discipline nonconforming subjects.
At the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and again at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, Russian athletes taking home Olympic gold heard Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23 in place of their national anthem. The prohibition of Russia’s anthem, along with the nation’s flag and other state symbols at international sporting events, was the result of an investigation into Russia’s state-run doping program. Although this restriction was heavily debated on social media outlets during the Games, the choice of Tchaikovsky’s beloved concerto was widely accepted as a symbol of the Russian state. The “Russianness” of Tchaikovsky’s concerto, however, is capacious and complex. In this article, I examine the Russian state’s appropriation of Tchaikovsky’s concerto not only as a nationalist musical motif, but as an irredentist anthem reflecting President Vladimir Putin’s intention to restore Russia’s “historic frontiers.” In addition to analyzing how the work was deployed before, during, and after the 2020 and 2022 Games, the article explores the composition’s appearance in contemporary Russian internet culture, including in a popular mashup of the concerto with Queen’s anthem “We Will Rock You.” Arguing that these examples offer musical evidence for the political rhetoric that insists Ukraine is rightfully a part of Russia, this article illustrates the ways that musical nationalism has proven malleable and been (mis)used in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anti-coup songs, which are usually called “revolutionary songs.” This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these revolutionary songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? Depending on ethnographic findings derived from interviews with musicians, disseminators and listeners, I argue that Burmese revolutionary songs are intended to support those already involved in resisting the military regime. The songs’ reception is complicated, suggesting that scholars must be cautious about making liberatory claims for protest music, even in cases such as this, where the lyrics of the songs are unambiguous and well-understood by listeners.
On May 12, 2016, the Brazilian Senate initiated impeachment proceedings of President Dilma Rousseff, installing Michel Temer as interim president. Temer’s agenda included Provsisional Measure No. 726, which shuttered Brazil’s Ministry of Culture, calamatious news for Brazilian culture makers, who relied on the ministry as a source of advocacy and financial support. In response, activists occupied state offices across the country in protest. At Palácio Gustavo Capanema, the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of the ministry, the occupation lasted more than 100 days. Culture makers from myriad disciplines and backgrounds showed support for the activists, with music and musicians playing a particularly important role in raising the profile and spirits of the occupation. The present article examines this moment through an analysis of a May 22 performance by composer Jards Macalé. Drawing on ethnographic work at the occupation and in-depth interviews with participants, it argues that musical performance, articulated through a politicized notion of love, served an important community-building function at these protests. It also contributes to debates by theorists such as Lauren Berlant and Sara Ahmed on the use of love to motivate political action. This language, while key to creating the possibility for identification, can be undercut by the lived exclusions of events like these when they do not include the presence of the people most affected by the policies being protested.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s papers in the FDR Presidential Library contain approximately seventy musical works calling for world peace, the lyrics and/or music of which were created by women. Women’s peace songs from the 1930s were often a response to the First Lady’s press and radio statements about peace. They were also influenced by calls for cultural change by activists in the women’s peace movement, represented by the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, groups with which Roosevelt was involved. Compositions about peace typically either featured march-like music and nationalistic imagery or were religious choral works and hymn-like expressions of women’s collective action. Writers sometimes parodied well-known hymns or patriotic songs, providing them with less militaristic texts. Musical offerings for the First Lady reflected women’s desire to assist Roosevelt in her peace efforts, their growing concern about the onset of World War II, and a strong belief in the power of music to help achieve a better world.
The Anglo-Austrian Music Society was founded in London in 1942 by Ferdinand Rauter—an Austrian-born musician who had made his name arranging and performing songs from various folk traditions with soprano Engel Lund. Rauter spent much of 1940 interned on the Isle of Man as an ‘enemy alien,’ a designation visited upon some 70,000 refugees and other foreign-born residents in the United Kingdom during the Second World War. In the wake of that internment, he founded and co-founded a series of musically oriented organizations culminating with the Anglo-Austrian Music Society. The Society was born out of and embodied a particular constellation of mobility—an entanglement of patterns of movement, mobile practices, and representations of mobility—that owed its existence to Britain’s geopolitical situation in the years leading up to and comprising the war. Drawing on work by human geographers, this article examines the intertwined elements of this constellation—including migratory movements from Nazi occupied Europe to Britain; ideas about mobility, nation, and musical creativity; and practices of regulating the movements of migrant musicians. Making sense of these entanglements is essential to understanding both the genesis of the Society and the creative successes of the mobile, contingent community its key participants cultivated in Britain.
EMI Tábor (Transylvanian Hungarian Youth Camp) took place in Szekler Land, a majority-Hungarian region in Transylvania that has been a part of Romania since 1920, and an object of nostalgic gaze from Hungary ever since. This nostalgia takes its most radical form in nemzeti (nationalist) rock bands, which are featured at the camp among other evening performances of rock music. This article underscores the importance of the Szekler Land and people in Hungarian nationalist projects, which often use Szeklers as an idealized representation of the nation. EMI Tábor is one place where a reification of Szekler Land takes place, based on historical and mythical connections. By applying a theoretical framework of nationalism and participatory music to performances by two nemzeti rock bands at the camp, I demonstrate how nationalist rock works as a vehicle for populist mobilization, and how Szekler Land is essential to a past that furthers the Hungarian state’s articulation of an identity positioned between East and West in the post-socialist landscape.
Robert Altman’s film Nashville (1975) generated a prodigious amount of press commentary following its release. Early on, critics praised the film, but a disappointing box office led many to assume a split between big-city liberal audiences and small-town conservative audiences. Subsequent press coverage connected this divide to both the film’s politics and its use and portrayal of country music, as political pundits, music critics, country music stars, and general audiences weighed in. This essay situates the reception of the film within a shifting country music industry, which was growing increasingly aligned with the Republican Party and increasingly suspicious of new artists. Altman’s overtly liberal political opinions, and his unusual decision to have the cast, along with music supervisor Richard Baskin—novices to country music—compose the songs, alienated him from the Nashville country music industry. Janet Staiger’s theorization of “talk” provides a compelling framework, as the film served as a flashpoint to argue political truths about the nation post-Watergate and to define country music’s evolving authenticity in a commercializing marketplace.
For Darryl Zanuck’s anti-communist film The Iron Curtain (1948), music director Alfred Newman compiled a score from the symphonic works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and Myaskovsky. The Soviet selections remained even after legal efforts on behalf of the composers sought to remove them. Scholarship on The Iron Curtain has acknowledged the courtroom wrangling but not the capacity for outside music to sustain and complicate a propagandistic narrative. This article considers Newman’s setting of music within the film, which shifts from the spare, predominantly diegetic musical accompaniments used in Zanuck’s other “semidocumentaries” to a style patterned after pro-Soviet Hollywood films made during World War II in which Russian musical selections encouraged sympathetic audience responses. Drawing upon contemporary press coverage and production materials, this study shows how The Iron Curtain’s unusual compilation soundtrack both affirms and subverts ideologies imposed upon it.
Taking my cue from the postcolonial cultural analyses of Edward Said, as well as a recent postcolonial turn in Holocaust studies, I define a practice of contrapuntal listening for the copious musical witness that constitutes the extensive Holocaust testimonial archive. Contrapuntal listening recognizes the inherent power dynamics and potential narrative desires present within the capture of testimony, a process that is never ideologically blank and is often driven by the explicit goals of the interviewers (amateurs and experts alike), whose relationship to the traumatized individual before them ranges from the empathetic to the antagonistic. This essay attempts to listen contrapuntally to one documentary source concerned with Viktor Ullmann’s musical activities in Terezín: Goethe och Ghetto (1996), the award-winning film directed by Peter Berggren and Göran Rosenberg. My analysis places the original witness testimonies collected for the project in contrapuntal conversation with the final documentary to illuminate its intentional “voicing” of three survivors as well as the power dynamics inherent in the testimonial exchange. My aim is not to cast aspersions, but to call for increased attention to these varied counterpoints as we expand our understanding of music’s roles in multivocal spaces like Terezín. To do so is to begin to enable a self-critical exchange with musical testimonies that considers their engagement within historical networks of power and authority.
This paper considers the musical output of Detroit-based hardcore punk band Negative Approach (and particularly its vocalist John Brannon), as a lens through which to understand Detroit’s place in what Andreas Huyssen calls the “imaginary of ruins.” During their short existence from 1981-1984, Negative Approach developed a sound that is frequently understood to reflect Detroit, the band’s intensity and Brannon’s vicious vocal timbre correlated with the image of a city ‘ruined’ by the economic decline and racial inequities hastened by its infamous 1967 riots. Drawing on ruin studies, a history of Detroit, the context of American hardcore rock, and on the timbral and structural qualities of Brannon’s music, the paper considers both the usefulness and problematic limitations of using ruin imagery to understand a surviving city, of reducing its material reality solely to metonymic expression of post-Fordist decline. While the paper does elucidate the correlation between Brannon’s music and the city’s struggles—which include a strained relationship with its wealthier, de facto segregated suburbs—it also illustrates the extent to which such designations are inherently problematic both for flattening the music’s affect and for overlooking the material reality of a city and its citizens, who struggle onwards with dignity and imagination rather than defining themselves solely in reference to their challenges.
