Speaking Truth to Power: The Public Policy Implications of Modern Musicology
Audio Version (to download right-click and 'Save link as...')
- Speaker(s):
- Andrew Pinnock (Southampton) and Chair: Robert Stradling (Cardiff - Emeritus)
- Event date:
- Thursday 04 March 2010
School of Advanced Study, University of London
- Description
-
At the time of their formation and for decades afterwards the BBC,
British Council and Arts Council of Great Britain (Britain's three main
cultural policymaking bureaucracies) took much of their musical advice
from leading musicologists and from composers well connected in
academia. Musicology shaped cultural policy, directed public spending
on subsidized music and had a huge influence on BBC programming. From
the 1920s through to the 1970s musicologists reached a sizeable lay
public through the BBC and Arts Council (at home) and via the British
Council (overseas), achieving "impact" beyond the wildest dreams of
their twenty-first century successors.This presentation recalls a lost golden age of policy relevant, publicly
accessible musicology and asks two tantalizing questions: what would
modern British cultural policy look like, were it to reflect current
musicological concerns reasonably faithfully; and (the other side of the
coin) what would modern British musicology look like, if more of its
exponents made policy relevance a priority?