Current Directions in Ecomusicology ─ Music, Culture, Nature

This volume is the first sustained examination of the complex perspectives on ecomusicology — the study of the intersections of music/sound, culture/society, and nature/environment. Twenty-three authors provide a range of theoretical, methodological, and empirical chapters representing disciplines such as anthropology, biology, ecology, environmental studies, ethnomusicology, history, literature, musicology, performance studies, and psychology. They bring their specialized training to bear on interdisciplinary topics, both individually and in collaboration. What emerges from the whole is a view of ecomusicology that the editors argue is a field, a place where many disciplines come together. The topics address in this volume — contemporary composers and traditional musics, acoustic ecology and politicized soundscapes, material sustainability and environmental crisis, familiar and unfamiliar sounds, local places and global warming, birds and mice, hearing and listening, biomusic and soundscape ecology, and more — engage with conversations in the various realms of music study as well as in environmental studies and cultural studies. As with any good ecosystem, the field of ecomusicology is dynamic, but this edited collection provides a snapshot of it in a formative period. Each chapter is short and designed to be accessible to the non-specialist; and extensive bibliographies are included with further materials provided on a companion website. An introduction together with interspersed editorial summaries helps guide readers through this particular instance of the field of ecomusicology.

Aaron S. Allen is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA.

Kevin Dawe is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Head of the School of Music and Fine Art at the University of Kent, UK.