Choral Conversations: Decolonisation, New Intersectionalities, Bad Faith and Wilful Misunderstandings
This talk addresses current flashpoints around different/conflicting projections on decolonial music initiatives around the world, including conversational fronts (or battlefronts in some cases) in multiple, intersectional contexts. Is decolonisation a ‘trend’, or here to stay? Can we keep Beethoven and Berio alongside Balinese gamelan and B.B. King? (But of course, yes). How will it happen alongside Gen Z concerns about climate change, mental health and precarity? Is musical decolonisation an anglophone-centric debate? What does it mean for people in the Global South, and increasingly also in affluent East Asia, whose representatives engage with the ‘West’ often wanting to consume the ‘canon’? Specific to Singapore, what might this mean for 'Malay musics' as Indigenous music? Is decolonisation the ‘new’ new musicology, or do we call it Global Music History/ies now? Where do transnational and transcultural conversations lie amidst personal and institutional reckonings of class/academic/musical privilege? And what has music or sound got to do with all of this?
About Choral Conversations
Context and Culture is focused on consolidating researcher and practitioner findings, thoughts, trajectories, and discussion on current issues within the practice of choral music. We also hope to raise consciousness in celebrating Indigenous knowledge and decolonisation beyond simply representation. While this is in the context of an academic setting, it may include work-in-progress presentations or practitioner reflections and sharing of ongoing projects that advance the field and practice of choral music.