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abstracts
Pavlos
Kavouras: Western
art music at the time of crisis: An interdisciplinary study of
contemporary Greek culture and European integration
This essay introduces the research project “Western
art music at the time of crisis: An interdisciplinary study of
contemporary Greek culture and European integration”. The project
focuses on the period starting from 2008 until the present, which may
be considered as the timeframe of the economic, social and cultural
crisis in Greece. In terms of methodology, it involves a pioneering
connection of historical musicology with ethnomusicology. Contemporary
Greek culture is studied as a unifying or diversifying reality with
respect to the European Union. This issue is examined in the context
of the expression and reception of Western art music in contemporary
Greece. Subsequently, the main terms employed in the project are
defined (crisis, European integration, and Western art music) and the
overall method used is presented through a critical review of
disciplinary developments in music studies, the relationship between
ethnomusicology and historical musicology, and
the use of a new approach that combines music ethnography and
historiography with an interpretative anthropological perspective. The
article concludes with a succinct description of the general planning
of the research undertaken with respect to the three main research
foci, namely “education”, “music ensembles and cultural
organisations”, and “festivals”. An overview of the particular
conceptual framework that was adopted for the research and the
synthesis of the research results, with reference to the concepts “networks”,
“practice”, “performance”, “habitus”, “event” and the
theory of new institutionalism, is also provided. A brief presentation
of the other essays of this issue follows, focusing on methodological
convergences and divergences vis-à-vis the project’s overall
method.
Jim
Samson: Music
in crisis: Key terms and concepts
This article is a contribution to the theoretical
framework of the project in question, with reference to its employment
in specific aspects of the research. It concentrates, in particular,
on the concepts “practice” (according to Pierre Bourdieu –with
an emphasis on the dialectical relationship between innovation and
inertia– as well as Alasdair MacIntyre – with
reference to the “ethos” of a practice), “event” (according to
Alain Badiou), as well as the theory of new institutionalism (by
Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio). Apart from specific
suggestions for the application of this theoretical framework in the
case of Greece, the author also presents respective examples from his
own research in the broader area of the Balkans (Albania, Kosovo,
Republika Srpska, Bosnia, FYROM) and Cyprus.
Rachel
Beckles Willson: A
project in flux: Tracing lines, heterogeneities, and interactions
This article presents the interdisciplinary theoretical
and methodological framework that the author proposes for the study of
Western art music by combining historical musicology with
anthropological perspectives. In particular, the models of
“relational thinking” and “gatherings of lines” (according to
Tim Ingold) as well as the “heterogeneous” practices that are
treated in terms of “interactions” of various factors (according
to Doreen Massey) shape a conceptual area in which the author attempts
a combined ethnographical and historiographical approach. Beckles Willson examines
the ways in which this conceptual framework may be applied to the
project’s three main research areas (“education”, “cultural
organisations and music ensembles”, and “festivals”), bringing
into play examples from her own research in a different area:
Palestine.
Anastasios
Hapsoulas: Western
art music and Greek music education: Crisis and prospects
This article constitutes a critical overview of the
area of music education in Greece. Having as a starting point the
reception of Greek antiquity in Europe, the author continues by
discussing the introduction and development of Western art music in
contemporary Greece. Moreover, he presents the problems of
institutionalised music education that are due to general
unsatisfactory political and state practices in the area of education
and culture, especially concerning comprehensive secondary schools as
opposed to pilot schools, music schools, institutions of higher
education, as well as conservatories. The article exposes in detail
the problems that predate the crisis that were aggravated because of
it. It also highlights issues that emerged for the first time as a
result of the crisis. Subsequently, it focuses on the question of
music education specifically, and attempts to trace an audience that
has been initiated into “classical” music. Finally, the author
underlines the need to upgrade music education according to the
conclusions of the research on music education in Greece at the time
of crisis.
Nick
Poulakis: Institutions
in crisis? Music ensembles and cultural organisations in 21st-century
Greece
This article tackles the issue of the political economy
of Western art music in Greece at the time of the social, cultural and
economic crisis (2008-2014) through a critical examination of certain
performative and administrative music and cultural institutions, in
particular music ensembles and cultural organisations. It examines
Greek cultural policy over the last thirty years and its connection
with the respective European policy especially with reference to
Western art music. Subsequently, the crisis of music institutions is
studied as an “event” that leads to transformations of the
cultural, economic, administrative and artistic habitus. The article
analyses the ambivalent practices and networks of people and
institutions in the realm of Western art music as these emerged during
the crisis. Finally, a case study follows, which concentrates on the
profile of the Greek National Opera since 2011, attempting a critical
discourse analysis of the construction and performance of its public
presence.
Katerina
Levidou: Surviving
the crisis: Summer festivals of Western art music in contemporary
Greece
In the context of the difficulties incurred by the
economic and socio-political crisis in Greece, there is an area of
cultural activity that seems to resist the overall –negative for the
arts– climate, an area that not only is not shrinking but, on the
contrary, is blossoming. That is the realm of cultural festivals and,
more specifically, festivals of Western art music. The author
initially delimits the area of festivals from the anthropological
perspective of “cultural performance”. She subsequently presents
the festival activity that relates to Western art music in
contemporary Greece, particularly during the years of the crisis. The
article focuses, primarily, on summer festivals that consist of
concerts only. The Nafplion
Festival, the Festival of Cyclades (on Syros), Mani-Sonnenlink (in the
Mani area) and Serenata Kriti (on Crete) serve as case studies for
this enquiry. The questions of the festivals’ relationship with the
local communities and their interaction with the local habitus are
analysed, as well as the interface of private initiative and the
public sector in shaping the activities, practices and aims of
festivals. Moreover, the role of volunteering and tourism is brought
to the fore. The article concludes with an examination of the
important part played by artistic networks in maintaining the
institution of festivals of Western art music in Greece.
Alexia
Kallergi-Panopoulou: Private
conservatories and music schools in Greece: A comparative study of the
principal institutions of music education during the economic crisis
This essay presents the author’s research results on
Western art music at the time of crisis with reference to the area of
education, focusing on private conservatories and music schools. The
research was conducted through fieldwork and interviews with musicians
and music teachers from all the areas and levels of private and state
education. The essay discusses the teachers’ and students’
anxieties, the teaching methods, and the consequences on the artistic
level of the economic crisis, as well as the students’ specific
interest in Western art music. The author concludes with an account of
the main findings of the research and a proposition for an alternative
approach to the teaching of Western art music with an experiential
orientation that may be developed through music workshops and music
ensembles.
Eva
Fourlanou: The
Athens Concert Hall: Bridging art and education
This essay examines the contribution of the Athens
Concert Hall to the cultivation of a Western bourgeois education in
Greece through Western art music. The author explores the social and
historical aspects of the connection of this specific cultural and
artistic institution with Greek reality. She also discusses the
overall framework of the institution’s existence and operation in
relation to ideological and practical dimensions, such as the prospect
of a “cultural purification” of Greece according to the Western
model. This study employs research tools from the areas of
ethnomusicology and historical musicology, and is based on a
historiographical and ethnographical approach to the study of music
institutions and cultural organisations. Subsequently, the Athens
Concert Hall’s educational practices are approached ethnographically
as social and cultural practices. Moreover, the historical orientation
of this ethnography allows the author to observe and highlight the
issues she studies in the essay since the very founding of this
specific organisation, with an emphasis on the period of the crisis.
Giorgos
Manouselis: The Ergon
at work: Mapping changes in the political economy of Western art music
through the case study of the Ergon Ensemble
The shrinking of the financial and administrative
aspects of cultural institutions during the crisis does not
necessarily involve a shrinking of the cultural-artistic aspects with
respect to the performance of Western art music. The Ergon Ensemble,
discussed in this essay, is a case in point. The author maps the
activity of this music ensemble and highlights the particularity of
this case, which is associated with a tendency to review the
established principles of artistic and cultural institutions aiming at
a new type of organisation and administration. Some characteristics of
music groups such as the Ergon Ensemble are the respect to the musical
reality and experiences, the habitus and the symbolic capital and,
finally, the personal artistic and cultural “ethos” of the
musicians involved.
Dionyssis Mallouhos: Classical
music in Kalamata at the time of the economic crisis
This essay offers a presentation of classical music’s
place in the broader area of Kalamata during the years of the economic
crisis. Serving as Director of the Kalamata Municipal Conservatory
since the August of 2009, the author attempts to overturn certain
established views regarding the situation surrounding classical music
in the Greek periphery. In the first part of the essay, the author
examines the place of Western art music in Kalamata, the town itself
as well as the broader area, the town’s relations to Athens, and its
contacts with people and institutions from abroad, especially Europe.
In the second part, he identifies the impact of the economic crisis on
certain aspects of the classical music scene, such as education,
concerts, and the presence of various individuals: parents, students,
artists, teachers, members of the audience and musicians.
Georgia
Vavva: Western
art music in the “community”: The case of the Music Village
The Music Village was officially founded in 2006 and
ever since it has been organised continuously every year in the second
half of August, in the village of Agios Lavrentios in Pelion. This
collective institution hosts a wide range of musical genres and an
equally wide range of participants in its various events. Its
indisputable popularity, the author notes, is due to the fundamental
distinction the organisers make between the concepts of “festival”
and “community”, maintaining that the Music Village is not a music
festival but a musical community. The author explores the concept of
the community ethnographically with reference to the Music Village,
examining the communal conceptions and practices of the music groups
that appear in it. She also investigates the Music Village’s
relationship with the hosting village, Agios Lavrentios. The author
makes the point that a “communal” engagement with music, as in the
case of the Music Village, constitutes a creative and effective
response to difficulties posed by the crisis.
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