The Possibility of Theomusicology: William Bradbury’s Esther, the Beautiful Queen

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Juanita Karpf
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
American Music ◽  
Cultural Function ◽  
African American Music ◽  
American Scholar ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Analytical Studies ◽  
Sacred And Profane

AbstractAfrican-American scholar, theologian, and musician Jon Michael Spencer issued his initial publications on his theory of theomusicology in 1986. As an alternative to more traditional musicologies, Spencer specifies theomusicology as a theoretical model of theologically, biblically, and spiritually-informed historical and analytical studies in music, of particular appropriateness to African-American music making. Theomusicology redirects the analytical and critical objectivity of musicologies to facilitate concentration on iterations of ethical, religious, and mythological beliefs, regardless of their medium, location, and cultural function. It seeks ways to describe the synthesis of the sacred and profane—the meshing of seeming opposites. This article explores the application of theomusicology to African-American performances of a popular large-scale vocal work entitled,Esther, the Beautiful Queen, written in 1856 by U.S. composer William Bradbury.

scholarly journals Stanley Péan et l’interculturalité en diaspora

Il Tolomeo ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana Fianco
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
American Music ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
Young Writer

In spite of being viewed as a young writer until the ’90s, Stanley Péan is now known as one of the most distinctive and established voices in the Haitian-Canadian literary scene. The pivotal moment in his career happened in 1996, when Zombi Blues was published. This novel displays a cultural space in which Haitian traditions and Canadian modernity converge and allow intercultural exchange to take place. Drawing from this perspective, the following article aims to analyse how Péan creates a fictional universe through the blending of cultural elements. Using the collection of myths and beliefs that permeate the Haitian and African cultural panorama as a reference point, we will investigate the ways in which Péan adapted and transposed these traditions to the Haitian diasporic context. Particular attention will be given to the use of jazz and African American music, as well as to the reinterpretation of mythological creatures such as the zombie and the marasa twins. Hence, the article tries to show how Péan’s cultural crossroad contributes to the foundation of a new literary interpretation of Haitianity.

Black Music USA: From African to African American Music

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Robert Sacré
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Black People ◽  
Gospel Music ◽  
American Music ◽  
Black Music ◽  
Deep South ◽  
African American Music ◽  
History Of ◽  
Primitive Forms ◽  
Work Songs

This chapter discusses the history of African American Music. Many of the roots of black American music lie in Africa more than four hundred years ago at the start of the slave trade. It is essential to realize that the importance given to music and dance in Africa was reflected among black people in America in the songs they sang, in their dancing, and at their folk gatherings. As such, every aspect of jazz, blues, and gospel music is African to some degree. Work songs and the related prison songs are precursors of the blues. One can assume that primitive forms of pre-blues appeared around 1885, mostly in the Deep South and predominantly in the state of Mississippi. However, it was several more years before the famous AAB twelve-bar structure appeared, and when it did, one of its leading practitioners was Charley Patton.

The Fiery Debate

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-112
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
American Music ◽  
The Political ◽  
Antonin Dvorak ◽  
Musical Identity ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Vernacular Music

About eight months after Antonín Dvořák became director of Jeannette Thurber’s National Conservatory of Music in New York, he weighed in publicly on the question of American musical identity and argued that African American vernacular music (or “negro melodies”) should become the foundation of a national classical style. The New York Herald, which first printed his remarks, stoked a months-long debate that exposed deep-seated anti-Black racism throughout the country’s classical music industry as many musicians rejected the Bohemian’s suggestions outright. Dvořák remained supportive of African American music and musicians but did not fully understand the political implications of his positions.

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