The Ethnomusicologist as Inventor of Musical Tradition 

Authors

  • Shai Burstyn Tel-Aviv university Author

Keywords:

Invented musical tradition, Zionist Ideology, Israeli folkdance accompaniment, Edith Gerson-Kiwi

Abstract

The new folksongs and folkdances created in pre-State Jewish Palestine are telling examples of the claim that cases of invented tradition occur frequently in circumstances of rapid social and/or national transformations (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 4). Setting out from a 1955 brief article by Prof. Edith Gerson-Kiwi concerning the appropriate instrumental accompaniment of the nascent Israeli folkdances, this article examines situations in which ethnomusicologists directly intervene with the musical life of their own culture. 

Author Biography

  • Shai Burstyn, Tel-Aviv university

    Prof. Shai Burstyn was a senior faculty member of the department of musicology at Tel-Aviv university (1974 - 2007) and chaired it three terms. He also taught at the Mannes College of Music (New York) and was a research Fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. Prof. Burstyn served on the board of ESEM (European Seminar of Ethnomusicology) and chaired the Israeli Society of Musicology. He has published extensively on various aspects of late medieval and early Renaissance music, notably medieval oral polyphony and Arab influence on medieval European music. His interest in oral music practices led him to research the early Israeli folksong (1925-1960),  primarily its ambiguous relations with the music of the Middle-East and its national-ideological constraints. Prof. Burstyn is a founding member of Zemereshet, an internet project dedicated to collecting and preserving the early Hebrew song repertory.  

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Published

2024-04-23

Issue

Vol. 13 (2016)

Section

Articles