GWAM

While contemporary musical pluralism has served to blur categorizations, certain persisting binaries continue to shape musical activities and their social implications. The myth of the ‘universality’ of WAM, itself a byproduct of the “West versus the rest” paradigm, is now subject to increasingly strong scrutiny. While recent efforts have worked usefully to de-centre the West, with this project we propose to locate Western Art Music as a site of global relationality, a contact zone for intercultural exchanges and encounters, including problematic ones. We acknowledge that the practice and consumption of Western Art Music have followed arcs of empire, asserting geopolitical boundaries and reifying existing power structures along the lines of race, class, and gender. At the same time, however, WAM has opened in new, relational sites of belonging and identity formation in its global expansion, producing multiple modernities and modes of belonging in diverse historical and contemporary contexts. 

To explain the concept of “Global”, we borrow the term, “Difference in Relation” (the subtitle of our project) from the discipline-defining article by the Hong Kong-based musicologist Prof. Daniel Chua. In his article “Global Musicology: A Keynote without a Key,” Chua distinguishes between international, world, and global, as follows:

When applied to WAM, each of these terms has different ramifications. Calling WAM “international” implies that it rules over all other types of music. Considering WAM as a “world music” connotes that it is just one specific kind of music within a plethora of different musical cultures. “Global” WAM, however, defines WAM not on its own terms but in relation to other (musical) cultures. The examination of these relations between WAM and other cultures as well as the processes of cultural exchanges and encounters (not always peaceful ones) and cross-pollinations will be at the heart of the GWAM project/network. 

Inviting participants from diverse geographical locations and with varying relationships to WAM (as performers, scholars, policymakers, audience members) will create the conditions for a fruitful and organic sharing of ideas and experiences as we consider the many ways in which WAM has spread and proliferated. A prime objective of our project is to consider the processes of exchange and hybridization in both directions, bringing into discussion also the impact of non-European music and thinking on WAM. In line with its goals of diversity, inclusion and decolonization, a principal feature of GWAM is to invite voices from the Global South to participate in exploring the relations and relationalities between WAM and other musical cultures, telling the story in their own words, rather than having Western scholars and musicians speak on their behalf. Questions to be addressed include, but are not confined to, the following:

• How has interest in WAM manifested itself globally, both creatively and re-creatively?
• What motivations have underpinned those manifestations?
• How have these processes evolved over generations?
• What discourses and problematisations have emerged from the processes of encounter and exchange?
• What comparisons may be drawn between different cultural environments in relation to WAM?

Through these explorations, we seek to overcome entrenched cultural boundaries in music, while articulating novel approaches to our current historical moment, which is shaped by both the hardening of geopolitical boundaries and emerging formations of identity and belonging.