Abstract
The core issues in the fight for social justice addressing religion, gender, ethnicity, race, and political regimes are as old as humankind. Exploring the experiences of marginalized composers throughout the ages, offers a way to contextualize social injustices still plaguing today’s modern societies. From its inception, music, as a multidisciplinary field, has served as a form of expression and communication, preserving a cultural record keeping of societal structure and function. This paper addresses social activism by exploring important, published literary and musical works through textual and compositional analysis. Furthermore, the study draws attention to an important concept of inter-sectionalism, which is essential to both social justice discipline and musical process. The literary writings by such individuals as James Baldwin, W.E.B. DuBois, Elie Wiesel, Isabel Wilkerson and others, are used as the foundation to introduce musical works, whose diverse compositional techniques aim to use classical music as a universal call to action. The paper demonstrates how societies viewed these marginalized individuals, and in turn, how the composers responded through their musical voice. The social injustices experienced in societies, past and present, represented through musical arts, may elicit social conscience among the modern world to build more inclusive and equitable societies.
Presenters
Rose GraceAssociate Professor of Music (piano), Department of Music, Bethune-Cookman University, Florida, United States Terrance Lane
Choral Director, Music, Bethune-Cookman University, Florida, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Civic, Political, and Community Studies
KEYWORDS
Diversity, Human Rights, Multiculturalism, Identities, Minorities, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Class
