Learning Objective

• To foster knowledge of past and present engagements with cultural difference in the field of music.
• To give participants the concepts and analytical tools to critically assess the potentials, challenges and concerns involved in any such engagement.
• To introduce participants to the basic characteristics of music traditions from the Asian, African and Latin American continents.
• To help participants to position themselves as artists in a globalizing world. 

Course Description
Today, ever more creative professionals are interested in engaging with cultural traditions that they – at least initially – consider as different from their own. In this course, we will analyze such engagements within the field of music in the broadest sense, including the discipline/tradition that students are majoring in: early music, Classical-Romantic music, contemporary music, jazz, pop, electronic music, ballet, opera, musical, film music, etc. Of the case studies that we will explore, we will first consider the history, aesthetics, music-theoretical and performative characteristics of the music traditions involved, and subsequently analyze and critically assess the ways in which these traditions interact in the work or performance under discussion. In previous editions of this course the cases of Félicien David, Camille Saint-Saëns, Claude Debussy, Béla Bartók, Leoš Janáček, George Enescu, Ahmed Adnan Saygun, Aziz El-Shawan, Olivier Messiaen, Ton de Leeuw, Henry Cowell, Luciano Berio, Chou Wen-chung, Tōru Takemitsu, Haruomi Hosono, and the Beatles have been discussed, as well as more recent intercultural projects such as the Boston-based Silk Road Ensemble and the Amsterdam-based Atlas Ensemble.