Music Scenes and Migrations: Space and Transnationalism in Brazil, Portugal and the Atlantic

(Hardback)

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Music Scenes and Migrations brings together new work from Brazilian and European scholars around the themes of musical place and transnationalism across the Atlantic triangle connecting Brazil, Africa and Europe.

Moving beyond now-contested models for conceptualising international musical relations and hierarchies of powers and influence, such as global/local or centre/periphery, the volume draws attention instead to the role of the city, in particular, in producing, signifying and mediating music-making in the colonial and post-colonial Portuguese-speaking world. In considering the roles played by cities as hubs of cultural intersection, socialisation, exchange and transformation; as sites of political intervention and contestation; and as homes to large concentrations of consumers, technologies and media, Rio de Janeiro necessarily figures prominently, given its historical importance as an international port at the centre of the Lusophone Atlantic world. The volume also gives attention to other urban centres, within Brazil and abroad, towards which musicians and musical traditions have migrated and converged - such as Sao Paulo, Lisbon and Madrid - where they have reinvented themselves; where notions of Brazilian and Lusophone identity have been reconfigured; and where independent, peripheral and underground scenes have contested the hegemony of the musical 'mainstream'.

Reviews

Music Scenes and Migrations is a most welcome addition to popular music studies of the Lusophone world with a particular focus on Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro as loci of transnational circulation and exchange. Against models of globalization that only recognize unidirectional flows of information and sensibilities, the contributors highlight a long history of colonial and postcolonial musical cosmopolitanism involving multidirectional dialogues among circum-Atlantic cities in Africa, the Americas and Europe. Christopher Dunn, Associate Professor, Spanish, Portuguese and Africana Studies, Tulane University, USA

Music Scenes and Migrations presents cutting-edge research and reflection on popular music of the Luso-Atlantic world, deftly exploring the balance between rich local scenes and deep trans-Atlantic patterns. The volume pushes beyond the national to emphasize migration, diasporas and contested local spaces. Translation of key works from the original Portuguese and attention to accessibility throughout opens some of the best recent scholarship to a broader public. This is a welcome addition to our understanding of Brazilian music in its context of recurrent Atlantic exchange and innovation. Bryan McCann, Department Chair, Department of History, Georgetown University, USA

Author Bio

David Treece, author and educator, is Camoens Professor of Portuguese at Kings College London, where he has taught and researched on Brazilian culture since 1987.