Professional Music-Making in London: Ethnography and Experience

by Stephen Cottrell

"Professional Music-Making in London is a study that examines the lives and work of Western art musicians from an ethnographic perspective. Drawing in part on his own professional experience, Stephen Cottrell considers to what extent musicians in Western society conform to Alan Merriam's paradigmatic assessment of them as having low status yet high respect, as well as being given an unusual degree of licence to deviate from convention. The book draws on a wide variety of approaches from scholars elsewhere: from ethnomusicologists such as Bruno Nettl and Henry Kingsbury, performance theorists such as Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, as well as psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein." The focus of this study is on professional music-making in London, one of the world's busiest centres of musical performance. Yet the issues raised and explored are deeply relevant to other major centres of Western art music such as New York, Berlin or Sydney. Ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, musicologists, performers, teachers and concert-goers will find this book a stimulating insight into, and investigation of, Western art musicians and their place in today's world.

219 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2004

About the author

Stephen Cottrell is a saxophonist and professor of music at City University London.