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Why is classical music predominantly the preserve of the white middle classes? Through a richly detailed ethnography, this book contributes to this ongoing debate with a timely and provocative intervention, locating classical music within one of the cultures that produces it - middle-class English youth - and foregrounds classical music as bodily practice of control and restraint.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. Locating classical music in culture
- Chapter 2. Boundary-drawing around the proper: from the Victorians to the present
- Chapter 3. 'Everyone here is going to have bright futures'. Capitalising on musical standard
- Chapter 4. 'Getting it right' as an affect of self-improvement
- Chapter 5. Rehearsing restraint: how the body is transcended
- Chapter 6. 'Sometimes I feel like I'm his dog': gendered power and the ethics of charismatic authority
- Chapter 7. 'Instead of destroying my body I have a reason for maintaining it.' Young women's re-imagining of the body through singing opera
- Chapter 8. A community in sound: constructing the valued self
- Conclusion
- Appendix One
- References
About the author
Anna Bull is Lecturer in Education & Social Justice at the University of York. Her research interests include class and gender inequalities in classical music education and staff sexual misconduct in higher education. Bull has published in leading sociology and music education journals, and has also written for a variety of non-academic publications including The Guardian and Arts Professional. Before becoming a sociologist, Anna worked as a pianist and cellist in her native New Zealand and across Scotland with ensembles including Scottish Opera, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, and Live Music Now!.
Summary
Why is classical music predominantly the preserve of the white middle classes? Through a richly detailed ethnography, this book contributes to this ongoing debate with a timely and provocative intervention, locating classical music within one of the cultures that produces it - middle-class English youth - and foregrounds classical music as bodily practice of control and restraint.
Additional text
Class, Control, and Classical Music is a provocative read, designed to shake complacency and make readers think again about their own formative musical experiences.
