“I go. I return. I am confused”: Reflections on Armenian Music Ideas in Multi-sited Research

Doing ethnomusicological research about diaspora and music means travelling. Travelling back and forth to Armenian groups in Italy and France and being in the Republic of Armenia to understand and interpret, using the dialogical approach, the musical knowledge of particular individuals of communities and their self-identification as Armenians through music. By sharing and pondering opinions and experiences in different situations, the article discusses ‘Armenianness’ in the music of the protagonists of Milan’s musical practices comparing their discourses with those of other Armenians in Paris and Yerevan. It analyses how perceptions formed in Milan were a conditioning factor at the beginning of the research. It discusses also how the researcher had to adjust her understanding after discovering other musical identities in Armenian groups in France and Armenia and how coming back to Milan with a renewed awareness was pivotal in reflecting the diverse and divergent ways of being Armenian in music. Music can accommodate and direct shifting senses of self. Discovering several Armenian musical identities has revealed a reality where music expresses a will to remember history and at the same time an increasingly multiethnic, globalised Armenian culture, rather than a monolithic musical culture.Doing ethnomusicological research about diaspora and music means travelling. Travelling back and forth to Armenian groups in Italy and France and being in the Republic of Armenia to understand and interpret, using the dialogical approach, the musical knowledge of particular individuals of communities and their self-identification as Armenians through music. By sharing and pondering opinions and experiences in different situations, the article discusses ‘Armenianness’ in the music of the protagonists of Milan’s musical practices comparing their discourses with those of other Armenians in Paris and Yerevan. It analyses how perceptions formed in Milan were a conditioning factor at the beginning of the research. It discusses also how the researcher had to adjust her understanding after discovering other musical identities in Armenian groups in France and Armenia and how coming back to Milan with a renewed awareness was pivotal in reflecting the diverse and divergent ways of being Armenian in music. Music can accommodate and direct shifting senses of self. Discovering several Armenian musical identities has revealed a reality where music expresses a will to remember history and at the same time an increasingly multiethnic, globalised Armenian culture, rather than a monolithic musical culture

Voci dello spirito. Il Suono nelle comunità religiose di Milano

Programmi di sala del Focus "Voci dell spirito. Il Suono nelle comunità religiose di Milano", a cura di Giovanni De Zorzi e Ortensia Giovannini, nell'ambito del festival internazionale MiTO Milano Torino Settembre Music

“One Nation, but one culture? This is a question”. Espressioni musicali e costruzione identitaria degli armeni della diaspora

Il genocidio del 1915 ha portato alla creazione di diverse comunità armene diasporiche in tutto il mondo. Esse si autorappresentano, vengono indicate e raggruppate sotto l’etichetta diaspora armena spesso senza fare troppa attenzione alle diversità intrinseche ad esse. La letteratura critica riguardante la diaspora armena è in molti casi lacunosa per quanto riguarda i rapporti fra comunità diasporiche e musica, soprattutto nel caso degli armeni di Francia e Italia, focus di questo lavoro. Questa ricerca si basa sulla teorizzazione che le comunità armene in diaspora sono comunità immaginate, caratterizzate da cosmopolitismo. Applicando metodologie etnografiche, dialogiche e basandosi su un’ampia bibliografia riguardante la storia e la cultura armena, le teorizzazioni sulla diaspora e sui rapporti fra identità e musica, questa tesi analizza la costruzione dell’identità diasporica armena sub specie musicae e i meccanismi attraverso cui le pratiche musicali creano e rinforzano l’armenità. L’analisi etnomusicologica delle attività musicali e culturali nelle diaspore armene italiana e francese mostra identità musicali diverse e una ‘musica armena’ emblema di un paesaggio sonoro diseguale e contradditorio. Questa varietà musicale parla delle tante ‘piccole patrie’ fisiche e interiori che costruiscono lo stato transnazionale armeno. Si tratta di narrative che incorporano questioni legate all’identità ed esprimono le relazioni complesse fra diaspora e madrepatria, fra comunità diasporiche, fra esse e i paesi dove risiedono e fra individui e comunità di appartenenza

The Museum of Renaissance Music: A History in 100 Exhibits

This book collates 100 exhibits with accompanying essays as an imaginary museum dedicated to the musical cultures of Renaissance Europe, at home and in its global horizons. It is a history through artefacts—materials, tools, instruments, art objects, images, texts, and spaces—and their witness to the priorities and activities of people in the past as they addressed their world through music. The result is a history by collage, revealing overlapping musical practices and meanings—not only those of the elite, but reflecting the everyday cacophony of a diverse culture and its musics. Through the lens of its exhibits, this museum surveys music’s central role in culture and lived experience in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, offering interest and insights well beyond the strictly musicological field