Symposium
Cultural Diversity and the Urban Area
Explorations in Urban Ethnomusicology

University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the UNESCO Working - Group Vienna

Organizer: Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology, Symposium Chair. Ursula Hemetek

For most of its history, ethnomusicology neglected the urban area as field of research. Not until the early 1970s did this situation begin to change with the discovery of popular music as an urban phenomenon that also called attention to its socio-cultural context
The urban area has been and is a multicultural area, because contemporary urban centres inevitably attract migration. This also found its expression in ethnomusicological studies.
As Bruno Nettl observed in his article “New Directions in Ethnomusicology” on ethnomusicological research in the urban area (1992):
“In carrying out these studies, ethnomusicologists have been made particularly aware of the importance of music as a cultural emblem, as something that is used by a population group to express its uniqueness to other groups, bringing about cohesion but also serving as a medium of intercultural communication”.
In the proposed symposium we aim to explore methodological and theoretical issues and to present studies of different urban settings of comparative purposes.
Vienna and current research projects on the musical diversity in the capital of Austria will be one focus. Studies form other parts of the world – Lisbon, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Calcutta – will contribute to a global perspective. Ethnomusicologists from Europe and the USA have been invited to participate by giving presentations and joining the panel discussions. One final Roundtable will explore ethnomusicological contributions to the management of urban musical diversity. A concert will present some of Veinna’s minority music activities.