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This account of an ethnomusicologist's experience conducting fieldwork offers a glimpse into the life of New Zealand's Maori people through his documentation of traditional songs. The audio recordings included span 1958 through 1979, a time when many of the culture's traditions were fading. Sensitive writing and attention to the challenges of anthropological fieldwork shed light on postcolonialism in New Zealand and its effects on Maori and Polynesian cultures and the continuance of traditional...

Harmony and Discord: Music and the Transformation of Russian Cultural Life explores the complex development of Russian musical life during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the heart of this cultural history lies the Russian Musical Society, as both a unique driving force behind the institutionalization of music and a representative of the growing importance of voluntary associations in public life. Sustained simultaneously by private initiative and cooperative relationships with...

Like all cliches, Wales as 'the Land of Song' has a solid basis in historical fact. Welsh choral singing was a form of popular culture in the nineteenth century. Crowds followed the choirs in even greater numbers than in football matches and Eisteddfod competitions frequently became 'choral bull-fights' where keenly honed rivalries spilled over into betting, missile throwing, assaults on adjudicators and general violence. This is the story of Wales as the 'the Land of Song' as it has never been...

Written specifically for students, this introductory textbook explores the history and meaning of rock and popular music. Roy Shuker's study provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the production, distribution, consumption and meaning of popular music and examines the difficulties and debates which surround the analysis of popular culture and popular music. This heavily revised and updated third edition includes: new case studies on the iPod, downloading, and copyrightthe impac...

In Good Music for a Free People, author Nancy Newman examines the activities and reception of the Germania Musical Society, an orchestra whose members emigrated from Berlin during the Revolutions of 1848. These two dozen "Forty-Eighters" gave nearly a thousand concerts in North America during the ensuing six-year period, possibly reaching a million listeners. Drawing on a memoir by member Henry Albrecht, Newman provides insights into the musicians'desire to bring their music to the audiences of...

A unique record of Poulenc (1899-1963) who is considered the greatest composer of melodies of his period, a period that opened with the aftermath of the First World War and closed as recently as 1960. He set to music poetry by all the greatest French twentieth century poets as well as others from earlier times. He wrote this diary of songs as an answer to what he felt were the frequent misinterpretations of his work. It describes the origins of each song, comments on performances he heard and of...

Nawang Khechog is a Grammy nominee in his genre of creating relaxing music by combining vocal and instrumental abilities. Music As Medicine is full of melody and chants mixed together in a way that will help soothe the soul.

Etoile de Dakar formed in 1977 and soon became Senegal's top group. Proud of their Senegalese upbringing, the group's two main artists, Youssou N'Dour and El Hadji Faye, became Senegal's first real pop stars. This album features tracks from the seventies and eighties.

There is nothing quite like Irish music to stir the blood and lift the soul. Slow airs to make you weep, jigs to make you happy, songs to make you sing and reels to make you dance like a dervish. It travels well, but still there's nothing quite like hearing Irish music in Ireland. Not on big concert halls or grand arenas, or even the popular taverns on the tourist route, but in the small pubs in remote areas where the locals habitually gravitate for those informal sessions that invariably develo...

for SATB with piano accompaniment and unaccompanied Furusato presents five evocative arrangements of Japanese songs. Each poem depicts the beauty of the Japanese landscape, and familiar melodies and Chilcott's original style combine to create an enchanting fusion of East and West. Suitable for performance as a suite or as stand-alone pieces, these charming and emotive songs will be a welcome addition to the repertoire of any choir.

Honoring God and the City presents the first detailed history of musical activities at Venetian lay confraternities, societies that were crucial to the cultural and ceremonial life of Venice. Based on over two decades of research in Venetian archives, musicologist Jonathan Glixon traces musical practices from the origins of the earliest confraternities in the mid-thirteenth century to their suppression under the French and Austrian governments in the early nineteenth century. Glixon first discus...