On the eve of 1920, the U.S. recording industry had been through a number of near-fatal economic downturns since its precarious emergence in the 1890s, and yet stood on the verge of its most influential decade to date. Already in its short history, the recording industry had nearly ceased to exist in the 1890s, saved itself by transforming the phonograph from office machine to nickel-in-the-slot novelty, survived the first of many format wars to come, and reinvented itself by introducing the phonograph into American homes. During the 1920s and 1930s, the recording industry participated in creating genre categories and identifying audiences for music that had previously gone unrecorded. By concentrating on both industry giants (Victor, Columbia) and smaller labels that were key to industry trends (Gennett, Paramount, Okeh), this dissertation's working hypothesis is that a new mode of production in the recording industry between the world wars -- based both on previous business strategies and new market conditions -- allowed a few large corporations to develop into a highly organized industry. This relationship between genre (understood as a configuration of social, cultural, ideological, and aesthetic beliefs) and mode of production (in its most concrete sense, how a given company operates) has continued to be an important one to the record industry, because with each new genre and sub-genre the industry has the potential to connect with underserved or unrecognized audiences. By combining industrial history with cultural analysis, this dissertation analyzes institutional cultures at various record companies and the contributions of musicians and various cultural intermediaries who helped shape U. S. popular music beginning in the early twentieth century. The central questions to which I continually return are: How did the consolidation of the recording industry into distinct company cultures shape the records that were made? What role did these cultures play in the shaping of genres, in terms of both creative control and technological formats? And finally, how do these various aspects interrelate in the context of the recording industry -- both as an industry involved in manufacturing culture and reflecting its own participation as a cultural institution? / text

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This study provides a comparative analysis and performance suggestions for three Cirandinhas and three Cirandas for solo piano by Heitor Villa-Lobos in order to demonstrate their aesthetic and pedagogical value. The primary objective is to argue for the significance of the Cirandas as concert works and of the Cirandinhas as didactic ones. To better explore these two sets of pieces and their interconnections, the selected Ciranda-Cirandinhas pairs are all based on the same folksong theme. Thus, the analyses also demonstrate Villa-Lobos’s desire to represent Brazilian culture through his music and the ingenuity with which he treated the same melodic material within performative and pedagogical contexts. Heitor Villa-Lobos is recognized as the most significant creative figure in twentieth-century Brazilian art music and as one of the distinguished Latin American composers to date. His distinctive compositional style represents a thorough synthesis of influences from European art music with the African, Indo-American, and cosmopolitan urban idioms of Brazilian vernacular music. Villa-Lobos’s output comprises more than 2000 compositions in a wide variety of genres: symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music, art songs, and solo piano music. Throughout his career, he was a devoted supporter of music education for young people and of the development of a distinctively Brazilian art-musical tradition. The Cirandinhas and Cirandas represent an intersection of these two concerns. This study will be meaningful to both performers and piano teachers, whom it will encourage to include Villa-Lobos’s works within their concert repertory or teaching curricula. The document includes an introduction, a brief contextualized biography of the composer, a comparative analysis of the selected Cirandinhas and Ciranda with performance suggestions that touches on stylistic, pedagogical, and technical features of the pieces; a conclusion; appendices that include a chronological list of Villa-Lobos’s piano works and the titles and translations of all the Cirandinhas and Cirandas; and a bibliography.

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published_or_final_version / abstract / Asian Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In Montreal, salsa dancing is both an expression of Latin identity and a cultural commodity. Many Montrealers of Latin descent adopt salsa dance as part of their cultural heritage only after arriving in Canada, connecting, through salsa, to a transnational Latin identity that crosses the Americas. This situation illustrates how cultural affiliations are not necessarily fixed, but can be acquired in response to changing circumstances. Since salsa is not indigenous to the city, residents of Montreal can only access it through cultural institutions and community media outlets. This commodification influences the manner in which salsa expresses Latin identity in the city. At the same time that salsa dancing proclaims Latin identity for certain individuals in the city, the practice thrives in a multicultural context: the Montreal salsa scene comprises diverse individuals who promote, teach, and dance salsa. This dissertation addresses points of division and cooperation among diverse cultures, ethnicities, races, and both sexes, as they are played out in aspects of salsa dancing in the city. The unfolding of these relationships is influenced by both the commodification of salsa dancing and its link to Latin culture. This analysis seeks to provide a theoretical account of the tension between salsa's expression of identity and its status as a commodified cultural practice. This perspective integrates various approaches to the study of dance and culture stemming from anthropology, sociology and cultural studies. Analyzing the Montreal salsa scene, I draw from in-depth interviews with individuals involved in the promotion of Latin dance and music, as well as participant observations in salsa dance classes, clubs and events. The methodology of this research combines ethnography with various areas of concern: the history of salsa, Latin immigration patterns in Montreal, theories of multiculturalism, transnationalism and diaspora, the Latin influence in ballroom dance, Europe

The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to an understanding of the changing relationship between collectivist ideals and individualism within dispersed, transnational, and heterogeneous cultural spaces. I focus on musicians working in professional folk music, a field that has strong, historic associations with collectivism. This field consists of folk festivals, music camps, and other venues at which musicians from a range of countries, affiliated with broad labels such as ‘Celtic,’ ‘Nordic,’ ‘bluegrass,’ or ‘fiddle music,’ interact. Various collaborative connections emerge from such encounters, creating socio-musical networks that cross boundaries of genre, region, and nation. These interactions create a social space that has received little attention in ethnomusicology. While there is an emerging body of literature devoted to specific folk festivals in the context of globalization, few studies have examined the relationship between the transnational character of this circuit and the changing sensibilities, music, and social networks of particular musicians who make a living on it. To this end, I examine the career trajectories of three interrelated musicians who have worked in folk music: the late Canadian fiddler Oliver Schroer (1956-2008), the Irish flute player Nuala Kennedy, and the Italian organetto player Filippo Gambetta. These musicians are all notable for their taste for transnational collaboration and their reputations as mavericks and boundary-pushers. Through case studies of their projects, relationships, and collaborative networks, I explore transformations in the collectivist folk ideal by focussing on how these musicians are implicated in three phenomena: transnational festivals, new folk music sensibilities, and touring as social practice. This research is based on multi-dimensional, multi-sited fieldwork undertaken in Toronto, Genoa, Edinburgh, and at various festivals in Europe and North America between 2007-2013. I conclude that Schroer, Kennedy, and Gambetta experience transnational folk music space as a field of intersecting transnationalisms that are imaginaries and collectivities of varying size and scope. While festivals in this space increasingly celebrate a transcultural ideal and foster the formation of transnational networks, stable, heterogeneous transnational relationships are proving more difficult to attain. I argue that touring on this circuit generates a desire for community continuity that becomes part of the poetics of new instrumental folk music.

The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to an understanding of the changing relationship between collectivist ideals and individualism within dispersed, transnational, and heterogeneous cultural spaces. I focus on musicians working in professional folk music, a field that has strong, historic associations with collectivism. This field consists of folk festivals, music camps, and other venues at which musicians from a range of countries, affiliated with broad labels such as ‘Celtic,’ ‘Nordic,’ ‘bluegrass,’ or ‘fiddle music,’ interact. Various collaborative connections emerge from such encounters, creating socio-musical networks that cross boundaries of genre, region, and nation. These interactions create a social space that has received little attention in ethnomusicology. While there is an emerging body of literature devoted to specific folk festivals in the context of globalization, few studies have examined the relationship between the transnational character of this circuit and the changing sensibilities, music, and social networks of particular musicians who make a living on it. To this end, I examine the career trajectories of three interrelated musicians who have worked in folk music: the late Canadian fiddler Oliver Schroer (1956-2008), the Irish flute player Nuala Kennedy, and the Italian organetto player Filippo Gambetta. These musicians are all notable for their taste for transnational collaboration and their reputations as mavericks and boundary-pushers. Through case studies of their projects, relationships, and collaborative networks, I explore transformations in the collectivist folk ideal by focussing on how these musicians are implicated in three phenomena: transnational festivals, new folk music sensibilities, and touring as social practice. This research is based on multi-dimensional, multi-sited fieldwork undertaken in Toronto, Genoa, Edinburgh, and at various festivals in Europe and North America between 2007-2013. I conclude that Schroer, Kennedy, and Gambetta experience transnational folk music space as a field of intersecting transnationalisms that are imaginaries and collectivities of varying size and scope. While festivals in this space increasingly celebrate a transcultural ideal and foster the formation of transnational networks, stable, heterogeneous transnational relationships are proving more difficult to attain. I argue that touring on this circuit generates a desire for community continuity that becomes part of the poetics of new instrumental folk music.