Perspectives on world music
Postdoctoral lecture by Prof. Dr Matthias Lewy in the Saal Am Palais
For the first time since 2010, a scientist has successfully completed his habilitation at the Department of Musicology Weimar-Jena. Prof. Dr. Matthias Lewy is a comparative musicologist, cultural and social anthropologist, and cultural and media manager.
He will give his habilitation lecture on the topic of "World Music – Perspectives in Transition" as part of the celebrations for the 152nd anniversary of the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar – the Dies Academicus – on Monday, 24 June at 10:00 a.m. in the Saal Am Palais. The public is cordially invited to attend free of charge.
Dr Matthias Lewy has held the title of professor since 2015, as Professor of Music Ethnology at the University of Brasilia, and since 2023 as Professor of Research and Teaching at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He will receive his Weimar habilitation certificate from the hands of the university's president, Prof Anne-Kathrin Lindig.
Mitra Behpoori will provide the world music accompaniment to the ceremony on the string instrument "tar". She will play a self-composed fantasy for tar and drum, as well as a work by Gholam Hossein Darvish, on this plucked long-necked lute.
The lecture begins with an introductory overview of the history and use of the term "world music". This is followed by in-depth presentations on two selected topics. The first part discusses the genre of "world music", which emerged in the music industry and in musicological discourses from the 1980s to the 2000s. The focus is on the production of sound recordings, with the networks of the actors – including the performing music producers – being followed.
The second part of the lecture will focus on the creation of exotic "world music", which has a bearing on the dilemma of the distribution of ethnomusicological recordings. Special ways of existence of sound recordings, which require a special ethical approach to archiving and distribution, will be discussed.
The example of the joint work on the album "Amazonia" by composer Jean-Michel Jarre and the representatives of the cultures of origin to be heard on it will also be used to outline possible solutions to overcome this dilemma.
[18 June 2024]