Full Description
What happens when the elitist space of 'Western' classical music seeks to diversify itself? And what are the social effects worked through diversity discourses in classical music institutions? The sound of difference addresses these concerns by critically examining how diversity work takes shape in a cultural sector so deeply implicated in hierarchies of class, structures of whiteness, and legacies of imperialism. The book draws from ethnographic and interview data to analyse how diversity discourses become constructed in the organisational and creative processes of music production. From rehearsal and performance practices to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the sector's commitment to change, Kolbe reveals the institutional constraints and precarious labour relations that form around diversity work in classical music and skilfully considers what these processes can tell us about the remaking of class, race, and racism today.
Contents
Introduction
1 Thinking through diversity and its discontents
2 When diversity enters classical music: Situating the sector as a social scene
3 From 'white space' to 'diverse space'? How music practitioners reflect on diversity's hopes, tensions, and drawbacks
4 The commodification of diversity in practices of elitism and race-making
5 Making diverse musics: Power, inequality, and subjectivity in practices of composition, rehearsal, and performance
6 How to imagine/stage difference otherwise? (Dis)continuities of Orientalist representations in curatorial praxis
7 Toward a politics of conviviality? Thinking through musical performances as liminal encounters
8 'Diversity' in crisis? Reflecting on COVID-19's impact on institutional commitments to change
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
