Cover Photograph: UK-based South African community music animateur Eugene Skeef playing a Nigerian udu crafted by Wagnerian soprano Lisa Gasteen for the 5th IMC World Forum on Music in Brisbane, Australia. Photograph by Schippers, H (2013).

.:: Book Reviews (Eva-Maria Alexandra van Straaten, ed.)

Martin Clayton, Byron Dueck, and Laura Leante (eds.), Experience and Meaning in Music Performance (2013)
Carl Clements

Jocelyne Guilbault and Roy Cape, Roy Cape: A Life on the Calypso and Soca Bandstand (2014)
Louis Regis

Philip V. Bohlman (ed.), The Cambridge History of World Music (2013)
Tom Solomon

Andreas Gebesmair, Anja Brunner and Regina Sperlich (eds.), Balkanboom! Eine Geschichte der Balkanmusik in Österreich (2014)
Eckehard Pistrick

Babette Babich, The Hallelujah Effect: Philosophical Reflections on Music, Performance Practice, and Technology (2013)
Anna-Elena Pääkölä

Ian Russel & Catherine Ingram (eds.), Taking Part in Music: Case Studies in Ethnomusicology (2013)
Maria S. Guarino

Andrew Alter, Mountainous Sound Spaces: Listening to History and Music in the Uttarakhand Himalayas (2014)
Stefan Fiol

David A. McDonald, My Voice is my Weapon: Music, Nationalism, and the Poetics of Palestinian Resistance (2013)
Stig-Magnus Thorsén

.:: Recording Reviews (Robert Fry, ed.)

Nudbok al Amar (Dabke on the Moon) (2012)
David Knapp

Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Jacqueline Avila

Oui ma Chérie!—Music for Steel Orchestra (2014)
Kayleen Justus

Hunter Poetry (2012)
Lisa Osunleti Beckley-Roberts

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.:: Individual Paper Abstracts

Ethnomusicology, Ecology and the Sustainability of Music Cultures
Huib Schippers & Dan Bendrups

This article explores the next stage in a widening discussion that explores the twin constructs of ecology and sustainability in a music research context (cf. Titon 2009a/b). It begins by problematizing the notion of sustainability in music, addressing some of the efforts made to support music sustainability, and suggesting some alternative concepts for understanding how sustainability works. This leads to an introduction of Schippers’ framework for music sustainability, revolving around five key domains, or areas of activity. It positions this framework in relation to current trends in ethnomusicology, suggesting that ecology and sustainability may have a continuing role to play in expanding the theoretical scope of the discipline.

The Contributions of Reconfigured Audiovisual Archives to Sustaining Traditions
Anthony Seeger & Shuba Chaudhuri

Audiovisual archives have made important contributions to the continuing performance of some genres through repatriation projects, but misconception about archives and some of their historical shortcomings make them less effective than they might be. In the early twenty-first century, digital recordings, improved communications, and local documentation initiatives make it possible for archives to play even more significant roles in the future. This paper argues the benefits of decentralizing some of the functions of archives in order to empower and enable local communities to document and access their traditions while ensuring that organization, preservation and ethical access will be managed assiduously for the long term. Based on the authors’ experiences in India and the Americas, it suggests ways scholars, local communities, and audiovisual archives can collaborate to contribute to sustaining vibrant traditions in the performing arts and concludes with specific recommendations for archiving and planning community projects.

Music, Education and Sustainability
Trevor Wiggins

This article discusses the construct of sustainability in relation to West African educational contexts, and specifically, the case study of Nandom. Nandom is located in the north of Ghana and has about 10,000 people living in the town and its satellite villages, all with some degree of access to mains electricity, local radio stations, cell phones and the internet, yet isolated from the main centers of power further south. The experience of school music education in Nandom is presented here as a way of exploring the impact and ultimate interpretation of government policy when applied in a remote context. The article discusses instrumental music tuition in particular, and provides an empirical discussion of the daily activities of music teachers and students and the steps they must take to execute their music education goals.

Report: The Rise and Implementation of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection for Music in China
Zhang Boyu, with Yao Hui & Huib Schippers

Since the beginning of this century, China has engaged with the preservation and development of its intangible cultural heritage with an intensity unlikely to be matched by any other country in the world. To this end, it has rolled out a large number of initiatives across all levels of government. This has led to a national intangible heritage list containing 1,828 items as of 2014, hundreds of millions of yuan invested in preservation, and visitor numbers of up to 20 million for major events on intangible cultural heritage. At the same time, this enormous effort raises myriad questions in its relationship to recognising diversity, identity, empowering communities, nation-building, urbanization, and other contemporary realities. Loosely following the five domains outlined in the introduction, this paper describes the first fifteen years of intangible heritage protection as it relates to music in China, and some of the key issues for its future.

Open Air Music Festivals and the Environment:
A Framework for Understanding Ecological Engagement
Dan Bendrups & Donna Weston

This paper presents a model for understanding the ways in which open air music festivals proactively engage with environmental and ecological issues. It focuses on the Australian context, with two case studies of well-known and well-established festivals providing the basis for a framework that discusses four domains of environmental engagement: promotional, operational, conceptual and spatial. This framework is illustrated with examples drawn from ethnographic observations and interviews undertaken in 2012, during and after the running of each of the case study festivals. The paper argues that, through the examination of elements within these domains, new perspectives on musical engagement with the environment can be obtained.

Producing Bollywood: Entrepreneurs and Sustainable Production Networks
Alison Booth

Sustainability, in event management, results from a variable combination of economic feasibility, improved reputations for producers and/or artists, ongoing relationships among producers and others in the event industry, and increased production skill competency (Pernecky 2013; Kotler 1997). This article examines the variety of ways that Indian producers, as entrepreneurs, create sustainable production networks by maintaining relationships within local as well as global Indian communities. To illustrate sustainable production networks, this ethnographic research offers case studies of commercially produced concerts, featuring touring Bollywood performers in Auckland New Zealand. Ultimately, I argue that for an entrepreneur, building and maintaining sustainable production networks depend on reputation and their personal relationships, in order to continue producing events in a competitive market place. Producing successful events are important not only for individuals’ economic goals; they also have the potential to contribute to the building of economic and social sustainability of cultural communities. The findings in this article are adapted from the research for my doctoral thesis (Booth 2014).

Global perspectives: The IMC Report on Forces Affecting Music Sustainability
Richard Letts

Much of the information regarding sustainability comes to us from musicians via scholars. Public authorities and music industry representatives tend to be consulted much less, in spite of their crucial roles in the ecology of music genres. As President of the International Music Council, Richard Letts conducted a truly global consultation among the members of his organization and their networks, and reports on key findings in seven areas that may affect the sustainability of music genres and cultures.

the world of music (new series)

a journal of the department of musicology of the georg august university göttingen

ISSN 0043 8774