Las Jornadas SIbE 2015 tienen el placer de acoger a la Dra. Caroline Bithell (Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology, The University of Manchester), que impartirá la conferencia plenaria:

Repositioning ‘Revival’ as Theory and Practice in Emerging New World Orders: Views from the Caucasus

Much has changed – in both physical and scholarly worlds – since the middle decades of the 20^th century when the classic textbook revivals occurred. Contemporary processes of musical revitalisation and cultural renewal take place against a complex backdrop of global flows, imagined communities, and shifting geopolitical alliances. Alongside the growth of the world music and heritage industries, the new opportunities opened up by digital technologies and online communications for accessing both material resources and social networks have led to a dramatic reconfiguration of the spaces in which musical interaction takes place, and this in turn has expanded the potential of revivalist activity to transform social experience and effect cultural change. Of particular interest among the most recent developments area discursive shift from local tradition to world heritage, a renewed focus on participation, an interest in the therapeutic dimensions of cultural regeneration, anda greater acknowledgement of the part playedby outsiders in contributing to revival initiatives. I will explore aspects of these and other phenomena with reference to Georgia (Caucasus),where my current research focuses on the present generation of traditional music ensembles and their significance in relation to the country’s socio-cultural renaissance, its geopolitical reorientation and its emerging tourist industry. Brief reflections on my earlier research into the revival of traditional music on the Mediterranean island of Corsica will help throw into relief the extent to which an initial revival and later post-revival spin-offs are shaped by a particular confluence of local and historical circumstances on the one hand and broadertrends and narratives on the other. 

Bio

Caroline Bithell (MA Oxon, PhD Wales) is Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research interests include polyphony in oral traditions, folk revivals, the politics and aesthetics of world music, community music, intangible cultural heritage and cultural tourism. She is the author of Transported by Song: Corsican Voices from Oral Tradition to World Stage (Scarecrow Press, 2007) and A Different Voice, A Different Song: Reclaiming Community Through the Natural Voice and World Song (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival (2014). She is currently conducting research in Georgia (Caucasus).

Algunas de las publicaciones más destacadas de nuestra ponente invitada son: