Transcultural Musical Practices

There is something very exciting about the variety of musics being created in the 21^st century. In particular, what is frequently described as transcultural music, in a myriad of evolving forms and dimensions, has expanded dramatically. Due to ever-changing spheres of musical, and cultural, and sonic influence, transcultural musics are irreducible to a single style, often using through methods and sonic processes that stimulate propelling innovative aesthetic directions (or vice versa), relevant to our world and its current challenges. These possibilities demand new, often multifaceted perspectives. Significant challenges and potential pitfalls, however, await the practitioner who wishes to enter this arena with integrity. Too few resources are available to musicians for cultivating meaningful collaborations. By bridging the gaps between a dynamic, shape-shifting present and deeply time-honoured theories and aesthetics, the series provides a roadmap and insights into the conception, creation, and realisation of musics created transculturally. 

Musics addressed across the series range from those at least partially grounded in an ethos unfamiliar to practitioners––from traditional music, through ‘progressive traditional’, to wholly new, transcultural creations, including intermedial, multimedial, and interdisciplinary art forms. Extensive video, audio, and visual materials enhance many books in the series. With practice-centred methodologies at its core, Transcultural Music Practices series will make substantial inroads towards re-evaluating the idea of incommensurability across music cultures, a notion increasingly challenged by practitioners throughout the world today.