National Identity And The British Musical

Author : Grace Barnes
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2022-07-14
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781350243545

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National Identity and the British Musical by Grace Barnes Pdf

National Identity and the British Musical: From Blood Brothers to Cinderella examines the myths associated with national identity which are reproduced by the British musical and asks why the genre continues to uphold, instead of challenging, outdated ideals. All too often, UK musicals reinforce national identity clichés and caricatures, conflate 'England' with 'Britain' and depict a mono-cultural nation viewed through a nostalgic lens. Through case studies and analysis of British musicals such as Blood Brothers, Six, Half a Sixpence and Billy Elliot, this book examines the place of the British musical within a text-based theatrical heritage and asks what, or whose, Britain is being represented by home grown musicals. The sheer number of people engaging with shows bestows enormous power upon the genre and yet critics display a reluctance to analyse the cultural meanings produced by new work, or to hold work to account for production teams and narratives which continue to shun diversity and inclusive practices. The question this book poses is: what kind of industry do we want to see in Britain in the next ten years? And what kind of show do we want representing the nation in the future?

Author : Grace Barnes
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2022-07-14
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781350243552

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National Identity and the British Musical by Grace Barnes Pdf

National Identity and the British Musical: From Blood Brothers to Cinderella examines the myths associated with national identity which are reproduced by the British musical and asks why the genre continues to uphold, instead of challenging, outdated ideals. All too often, UK musicals reinforce national identity clichés and caricatures, conflate 'England' with 'Britain' and depict a mono-cultural nation viewed through a nostalgic lens. Through case studies and analysis of British musicals such as Blood Brothers, Six, Half a Sixpence and Billy Elliot, this book examines the place of the British musical within a text-based theatrical heritage and asks what, or whose, Britain is being represented by home grown musicals. The sheer number of people engaging with shows bestows enormous power upon the genre and yet critics display a reluctance to analyse the cultural meanings produced by new work, or to hold work to account for production teams and narratives which continue to shun diversity and inclusive practices. The question this book poses is: what kind of industry do we want to see in Britain in the next ten years? And what kind of show do we want representing the nation in the future?

Author : Ben Macpherson
Publisher : Springer
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2018-05-15
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781137598073

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Cultural Identity in British Musical Theatre, 1890–1939 by Ben Macpherson Pdf

This book examines the performance of ‘Britishness’ on the musical stage. Covering a tumultuous period in British history, it offers a fresh look at the vitality and centrality of the musical stage, as a global phenomenon in late-Victorian popular culture and beyond. Through a re-examination of over fifty archival play-scripts, the book comprises seven interconnected stories told in two parts. Part One focuses on domestic and personal identities of ‘Britishness’, and how implicit anxieties and contradictions of nationhood, class and gender were staged as part of the popular cultural condition. Broadening in scope, Part Two offers a revisionary reading of Empire and Otherness on the musical stage, and concludes with a consideration of the Great War and the interwar period, as musical theatre performed a nostalgia for a particular kind of ‘Britishness’, reflecting the anxieties of a nation in decline.

Author : Anja Thümmler
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 116 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2012-03-02
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9783869436647

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British Popular Music and National Identity in the 1990s by Anja Thümmler Pdf

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1.3, University of Leipzig, language: English, abstract: This thesis evaluates the relation between British popular music and national identity. It concentrates on developments during the 1990s, bringing together all three popular genres of pop music during that period: indie rock, dance music and black music. Taking into account theoretical considerations on popular music, this thesis applies theories of collective identities in general and national identity in particular to Nineties pop. By analyzing an example of popular music media as well as selected music texts, the discourses within popular music culture are being compared to general discourses on questions of national identity within Great Britain.

Author : Irene Morra
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2013-10-30
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781135048945

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Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity by Irene Morra Pdf

This book offers a major exploration of the social and cultural importance of popular music to contemporary celebrations of Britishness. Rather than providing a history of popular music or an itemization of indigenous musical qualities, it exposes the influential cultural and nationalist rhetoric around popular music and the dissemination of that rhetoric in various forms. Since the 1960s, popular music has surpassed literature to become the dominant signifier of modern British culture and identity. This position has been enforced in popular culture, literature, news and music media, political rhetoric -- and in much popular music itself, which has become increasingly self-conscious about the expectation that music both articulate and manifest the inherent values and identity of the modern nation. This study examines the implications of such practices and the various social and cultural values they construct and enforce. It identifies two dominant, conflicting constructions around popular music: music as the voice of an indigenous English ‘folk’, and music as the voice of a re-emergent British Empire. These constructions are not only contradictory but also exclusive, prescribing a social and musical identity for the nation that ignores its greater creative, national, and cultural diversity. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive critique of an extremely powerful discourse in England that today informs dominant formulations of English and British national identity, history, and culture.

Author : Irene Morra
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2013-10-30
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781135048952

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Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity by Irene Morra Pdf

This book offers a major exploration of the social and cultural importance of popular music to contemporary celebrations of Britishness. Rather than providing a history of popular music or an itemization of indigenous musical qualities, it exposes the influential cultural and nationalist rhetoric around popular music and the dissemination of that rhetoric in various forms. Since the 1960s, popular music has surpassed literature to become the dominant signifier of modern British culture and identity. This position has been enforced in popular culture, literature, news and music media, political rhetoric -- and in much popular music itself, which has become increasingly self-conscious about the expectation that music both articulate and manifest the inherent values and identity of the modern nation. This study examines the implications of such practices and the various social and cultural values they construct and enforce. It identifies two dominant, conflicting constructions around popular music: music as the voice of an indigenous English ‘folk’, and music as the voice of a re-emergent British Empire. These constructions are not only contradictory but also exclusive, prescribing a social and musical identity for the nation that ignores its greater creative, national, and cultural diversity. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive critique of an extremely powerful discourse in England that today informs dominant formulations of English and British national identity, history, and culture.

Author : Robert Gordon,Olaf Jubin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 624 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2016-11-21
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780199988761

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The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical by Robert Gordon,Olaf Jubin Pdf

The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical provides a comprehensive academic survey of British musical theatre offering both a historical account of the musical's development from 1728 and a range of in-depth critical analyses of the unique forms and features of British musicals, which explore the aesthetic values and sociocultural meanings of a tradition that initially gave rise to the American musical and later challenged its modern pre-eminence. After a consideration of how John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) created a prototype for eighteenth-century ballad opera, the book focuses on the use of song in early nineteenth century theatre, followed by a sociocultural analysis of the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan; it then examines Edwardian and interwar musical comedies and revues as well as the impact of Rodgers and Hammerstein on the West End, before analysing the new forms of the postwar British musical from The Boy Friend (1953) to Oliver! (1960). One section of the book examines the contributions of key twentieth century figures including Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber, director Joan Littlewood and producer Cameron Macintosh, while a number of essays discuss both mainstream and alternative musicals of the 1960s and 1970s and the influence of the pop industry on the creation of concept recordings such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Les Misérables (1980). There is a consideration of "jukebox" musicals such as Mamma Mia! (1999), while essays on overtly political shows such as Billy Elliot (2005) are complemented by those on experimental musicals like Jerry Springer: the Opera (2003) and London Road (2011) and on the burgeoning of Black and Asian British musicals in both the West End and subsidized venues. The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical demonstrates not only the unique qualities of British musical theatre but also the vitality and variety of British musicals today.

Author : Philip Rupprecht,Philip Ernst Rupprecht
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 507 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2015-07-09
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780521844482

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British Musical Modernism by Philip Rupprecht,Philip Ernst Rupprecht Pdf

The first in-depth historical analysis of British art music post-1945, providing a group-portrait of eleven composers ranging from avant-garde to pop.

Author : Rosemary Golding
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2022-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000564389

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Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Rosemary Golding Pdf

This volume of primary source material examines music and British national identity during the ninteenth century. Sources explore the reception of British music, continental and other foreign music, English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish music, and Empire. The collection of materials are accompanied by an introduction by Rosemary Golding, as well as headnotes contextualising the pieces. This collection will be of great value to students and scholars.

Author : Mark Fitzgerald,John O'Flynn
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-29
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781317092490

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Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond by Mark Fitzgerald,John O'Flynn Pdf

Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond represents the first interdisciplinary volume of chapters on an intricate cultural field that can be experienced and interpreted in manifold ways, whether in Ireland (The Republic of Ireland and/or Northern Ireland), among its diaspora(s), or further afield. While each contributor addresses particular themes viewed from discrete perspectives, collectively the book contemplates whether ’music in Ireland’ can be regarded as one interrelated plane of cultural and/or national identity, given the various conceptions and contexts of both Ireland (geographical, political, diasporic, mythical) and Music (including a proliferation of practices and genres) that give rise to multiple sites of identification. Arranged in the relatively distinct yet interweaving parts of ’Historical Perspectives’, ’Recent and Contemporary Production’ and ’Cultural Explorations’, its various chapters act to juxtapose the socio-historical distinctions between the major style categories most typically associated with music in Ireland - traditional, classical and popular - and to explore a range of dialectical relationships between these musical styles in matters pertaining to national and cultural identity. The book includes a number of chapters that examine various movements (and ’moments’) of traditional music revival from the late eighteenth century to the present day, as well as chapters that tease out various issues of national identity pertaining to individual composers/performers (art music, popular music) and their audiences. Many chapters in the volume consider mediating influences (infrastructural, technological, political) and/or social categories (class, gender, religion, ethnicity, race, age) in the interpretation of music production and consumption. Performers and composers discussed include U2, Raymond Deane, Afro-Celt Sound System, E.J. Moeran, Séamus Ennis, Kevin O’Connell, Stiff Little Fingers, Frederick May, Arnold

Author : Jennifer L. Oates
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2016-04-22
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781317124061

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Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): A Musical Life by Jennifer L. Oates Pdf

Hamish MacCunn’s career unfolded amidst the restructuring of British musical culture and the rewriting of the Western European political landscape. Having risen to fame in the late 1880s with a string of Scottish works, MacCunn further highlighted his Caledonian background by cultivating a Scottish artistic persona that defined him throughout his life. His attempts to broaden his appeal ultimately failed. This, along with his difficult personality and a series of poor professional choices, led to the slow demise of what began as a promising career. As the first comprehensive study of MacCunn’s life, the book illustrates how social and cultural situations as well as his personal relationships influenced his career. While his fierce loyalty to his friends endeared him to influential people who helped him throughout his career, his refusal of his Royal College of Music degree and his failure to complete early commissions assured him a difficult path. Drawing upon primary resources, Oates traces the development of MacCunn’s music chronologically, juxtaposing his Scottish and more cosmopolitan compositions within a discussion of his life and other professional activities. This picture of MacCunn and his music reveals on the one hand a talented composer who played a role in establishing national identity in British music and, on the other, a man who unwittingly sabotaged his own career.

Author : Peter Horton,Bennett Zon
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2019-05-23
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780429627170

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Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies by Peter Horton,Bennett Zon Pdf

Originally published in 2003 and selected from papers given at the third biennial conference on Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, this volume, in common with its two predecessors, reflects the interdisciplinary character of the topic. The introductory essay by Julian Rushton considers some of the questions that are key to this area of study: what is the nineteenth century, what is British music, and did London influence the continent? The essays that follow are divided into broad thematic groups covering aspects of gender, church music, national identity, and local and national institutions. This collection illustrates that while nineteenth-century British music studies is still in its infancy as a field of research, it is one that is burgeoning and contributing to our understanding of British social and cultural life of the period.

Author : Tomi Mäkelä
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Music
ISBN : UOM:39015039887834

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Music and Nationalism in 20th-century Great Britain and Finland by Tomi Mäkelä Pdf

Author : Eric Saylor,Christopher M. Scheer
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781783270620

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The Sea in the British Musical Imagination by Eric Saylor,Christopher M. Scheer Pdf

10 Political Visions, National Identities, and the Sea Itself: Stanford and Vaughan Williams in 1910 -- 11 Bax's 'Sea Symphony' -- 12 'Close your eyes and listen to it': Special Sound and the Sea in BBC Radio Drama, 1957-59 -- Afterword : Channelling the Swaying Sound of the Sea -- Index

Author : Jeffrey H. Jackson,Stanley C. Pelkey
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781604735215

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Music and History by Jeffrey H. Jackson,Stanley C. Pelkey Pdf

This book begins with a simple question: Why haven't historians and musicologists been talking to one another? Historians frequently look to all aspects of human activity, including music, in order to better understand the past. Musicologists inquire into the social, cultural, and historical contexts of musical works and musical practices to develop theories about the meanings of compositions and the significance of musical creation. Both disciplines examine how people represent their experiences. This collection of original essays, the first of its kind, argues that the conversation between scholars in the two fields can become richer and more mutually informing. The volume features an eloquent personal essay by historian Lawrence W. Levine, whose work has inspired a whole generation of scholars working on African American music in American history. The first six essays address widely different aspects of musical culture and history ranging from women and popular song during the French Revolution to nineteenth-century music publishing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two additional essays by scholars outside of musicology and history represent a new kind of disciplinary bridging by using the methods of cultural studies to look at cross-dressing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera and blues responses to lynching in the New South. The last four essays offer models for collaborative, multidisciplinary research with a special emphasis on popular music. Jeffrey H. Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee, is assistant professor of history at Rhodes College. He is the author of Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris. Stanley C. Pelkey, Portage, Michigan, is assistant professor of music at Western Michigan University. He is a member of the College Music Society, and his work has appeared in music-related periodicals.