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Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2013

HETTIE MALCOMSON
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Abstract

In contrast to established musicians, lesser-known composers have received scant attention in art music scholarship. This article, based on an ethnographic study, considers how a group of British composers construed ideas of success and prestige, which I analyse in terms of anthropological writings on exchange, Bourdieusian symbolic economies, and Foucauldian notions of disciplinary power. Prestige was ascribed to composers who created ‘interesting’ music, a category that eclipsed novelty as an aim. Individuality, enacted within a context of individualism, was key to assessing whether music was interesting. This individuality had to be tempered, structured, and embedded in the social norms of this and related ‘art worlds’. The article examines the social processes involved in creating this individuality, musical personality, and music considered interesting.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 115 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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