Performing Cosmopolitanism in the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

Thesis submitted for Master of Arts in Music Studies

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Shirley Mak 1

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Chapter 1: Cosmopolitanism and Music 8 Cosmopolitanism and Dialogue 8 Creating Cosmopolitan Projects 14

Chapter 2: Performing Cosmopolitanism 25 Imagining Difference 26 Cosmopolitan Practices 30 Performing Cosmopolitanism 33

Chapter 3: Cosmopolitanism as a Strategic Resource 51

Conclusion 61

Addendum 63

Sources 65

2

Introduction Amidst the proliferation of scholarship that challenges and goes beyond national-frameworks, and the rise of studies on transnationalism, diaspora, globalization, border-crossing and other related phenomena, cosmopolitanism has emerged as an appealing alternative to the narratives of nationalism and globalization. The etymology of “cosmopolitanism” is from the Greek kosmopolites, meaning roughly “citizen of the world.” This term was associated with the Greek philosophers Cynics (particularly Diogenes) and the Stoics, in which they used it as an alternative to the primary means of identification through a city or place of origin.1 As “citizen of the world,” Gillian Brock identifies two theses of cosmopolitanism. The first thesis is one of identity, in which being cosmopolitan means being “marked or influenced by various cultures.” The second one is of responsibility, in which cosmopolitanism means maintaining a certain responsibility not just to the locally affiliated, but beyond to those far and unknown.2 Cosmopolitanism has been prevalent throughout European history, particularly prominent in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Jacques Derrida. Cosmopolitanism as a normative philosophy is not only found in the “West,” but as Gerard Delanty notes, is prevalent in the philosophy of India and China.3 Elaine Sandoval notes that the Buddhist bodhisattva is paradigmatic of cosmopolitanism.4 ​ ​ In the 1990s, scholars from various disciplines started to reexamine cosmopolitanism as a useful critical concept, in part by creating a “new cosmopolitanism” that repudiates the baggage it has accumulated throughout its Western philosophical history. Sarah Collins and Dana Gooley identify one of the main catalysts of this revival of cosmopolitanism as Martha Nussbaum’s article5 on cosmopolitanism, in which she was “roundly criticized for attempting to legitimize a form of Enlightenment universalism without adequately accounting for its tainted imperialist

1Gillian Brock, “Cosmopolitanism,” in The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy ed. By William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield (May 2011), 2. ​ 2 Brock, 2. 3 Gerard Delanty, “Not All is Lost in Translation,” Cultural Sociology 8, no. 4 (2014): 375. ​ ​ 4 Elaine Sandoval, “The Ensemble in Educating Cosmopolitanism,” In The 9th Annual Soka Education ​ Conference, Aliso Viejo, California, February 16-17, 2013: 78. ​ 5 Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” Boston Review 19 (1994): 3-16.

3 associations.”6 As a consequence, there was a whole slew of criticisms that scholars attempted to address in a “new cosmopolitanism.” One such criticism was of cosmopolitans as being “rootless,” and owing neither allegiance nor responsibility to any nation.7 This was addressed by Kwame Anthony Appiah, who argued in “Cosmopolitan Patriots” that cosmopolitanism does not preclude patriotism.8 Other criticisms of cosmopolitanism are summarized by David T. Hansen as “naive utopianism, political aloofness, uncritical universalism, moral rootlessness, disguised ethnocentrism, and elitist aestheticism,” and that it “aspires to be too many things to too many people.”9 These criticisms will be further addressed and problematized throughout this thesis. The revival of cosmopolitanism in scholarship included the field of musicology as well. As Collins and Gooley notes, much of musicology has been “moving in a cosmopolitical direction” without explicitly referencing cosmopolitanism.10 This includes challenging national frameworks used in musical historiography (as in opera)11 or identifying cosmopolitanism in musical history,12 to understanding how cosmopolitan sensibilities could be generated in international music events.13 Jan Ling’s article, “Is ‘World Music’ the ‘Classic Music’ of our Time?”14 does not explicitly mention cosmopolitanism, but by identifying similar economic as well as ideological impetus behind both “classic music” and “world music,” he intentionally or

6 Sarah Collins and Dana Gooley, “Music and the New Cosmopolitanism: Problems and Possibilities,” The ​ Musical Quarterly 99 (2017): 143. ​ 7 Brock also notes that such negative connotations have been associated with the Jews and the Bolsheviks, “who, at one time, were considered to be dirty or foreigners, a threat to the community's purity,” 2. 8 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, “Cosmopolitan Patriots,” Critical Inquiry 23, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 617-39. ​ ​ 9 David T. Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies Without a Net: Interpreting Cosmopolitanism,” Studies in ​ Philosophy and Education 29, no. 2 (2010): 151. ​ 10 Collins and Gooley, 144. 11 Collins and Gooley cite where Michael Tusa how the opera by Weber, Der Freischütz, is more so ​ ​ “cosmopolitan” in style than it is a wholly German opera; likewise, they also cite Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker note that the national styles bear fluid borders that change throughout history, and indeed they serve more as historiographic tools; 144-5. 12 Such as Jillian Heydt-Stevenson and Jeffrey N. Cox reframing Romantic nationalism as “Romantic Cosmopolitanism,” and Magaldi, “Cosmopolitanism and World Music in Rio de Janeiro at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” 329-30; cited in Collins and Gooley, 147, 151. 13 See for example: Vassiliki Lalioti, “‘Stay in Synch!’: Performing Cosmopolitanism in an Athens Festival,” Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 1, vol. 5 no. 2 (2013): 131-151; Lisa Mccormick, “Tuning in ​ ​ or turning off: performing emotion and building cosmopolitan solidarity in international music competitions,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 12 (2014): 1-20. ​ 14 Ling, Jan, “Is ‘World Music’ the ‘Classic Music’ of our Time?” Popular Music 22, no. 2 (May 2003): ​ ​ 235-40.

4 not has identified the cosmopolitan sensibilities behind both, as well as point out how cosmopolitanism has been used as part of an economic strategy. Ling starts off with an anecdote where a conversation with his local “world music” shop owner made him realize that the patrons of the store were well-to-do, middle-aged, academically- and progressively-minded. This reminded Ling of the eighteenth-century noblemen who toured the world of Europe and brought back new and different music from southern parts of Europe during the Grand Tour.15 He finds in common how both classic music and world music were developed out of a mix of different styles. These styles, sourced from “folk music” from different parts of Europe and the world, were subsumed into a more popular and dominant style of the time.16 The concept of world music and classic music were in part driven by marketing, in which “Classic music was launched from the newly born capitalistic market, world music linked to the global economy and global distribution of products.”17 While both repertoires of music are considered to be a “mixture” of different styles, classic music has gained prominence and popularity throughout history and academia as being “classical,” and has become its own style, particularly known as the Viennese classic style (with the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven). But Ling implies that this is only a matter of time with world music, in which it might become a “new language” on a global level, as the classic music has throughout Europe.18 But most important of all is that Ling concludes with an emphasis on what I perceive to be the cosmopolitan impetus in common in both repertoires of music: [World music] refers to a form of music which is enjoyed by a very sophisticated young middle-class public, who combine their musical interest of new sounds from different parts of the world with a progressive interest in what's on in politics, economics, etc., many of whom are engaged in the peace move environment movements, etc. It is similar to the ideology of the Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century.19

The interest in difference and the desire to make the world a better place is very prevalent in cosmopolitan thought, and it is often expressed through music.

15 Ling, 235. 16 This would be eighteenth-century popular Italian music for classic music, and twentieth-century rock for world music; Ling, 237. 17 Ibid., 239. 18 Ibid., 236. 19 Ibid., 239.

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As a pianist with a eurogenic classical music background, I truly believe that my education and experience in this field, and my experience as a musician, has played a big part in influencing my own sense of cosmopolitanism. But perhaps the other half of the influence can be attributed to my experience growing up as Chinese-American and going to school in New York City. I have always felt an affinity with the repertoire of eurogenic classical music, perhaps because I have been learning it since I was young. Or, as Elaine Chang Sandoval has articulated, it could also be because of the feeling of affiliation that I felt by being a part of a community of musicians, when, despite growing up in a diverse city, and through images purported in the American media, I have also felt a sense of isolation and non-belonging. On the other hand, growing up in what I felt to be a bicultural experience (Chinese and American, but also much more, because, you know, New York City), reconciling and navigating those two experiences has also allowed me to view diversity and difference positively, and I believe this was what instilled in me a desire to learn about (cultural) difference. Thus, as a musician, I believe in the so-called power of music to enact social change, at least by instilling or teaching cosmopolitan sensibilities. As a scholar, I am skeptical of such claims, and would like to explore further the relationship between cosmopolitanism and music. After all, much research has shown that music is not inherently powerful nor peaceful, and has often been used for conflict and war. Further, there is already much scholarship showing that music has been privy to political agendas and have been used in diplomacy and politics, and cosmopolitanism is not exempt. Thus, in this thesis I would like to first begin exploring the relationship between music and cosmopolitanism by understanding how music has been used to enact cosmopolitan goals and agendas through the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. I first heard of these ensembles through the fame of founders of the ensembles, who are Yo-Yo Ma, and Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said respectively. As highly publicized ensembles that have been active for almost two decades, there is a good amount of research available. Furthermore, these two ensembles contrast in ways that their juxtaposition can offer a richer understanding of how differing musical aspects can relate to cosmopolitanism.

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Jeffrey and McFarlane notes that cosmopolitanism can be a set of imaginaries and practices that act as a strategic resource for expanding opportunities and consolidating power.20 As publicized performing ensembles, the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are not only performing music, but their ideologies of cosmopolitanism. This is supported by the research of Harm Langenkamp and Rachel Beckles Willson, who studied the role of ideological narratives in the Silkroad and the Divan respectively. Drawing from their research amongst others, I aim to understand how the Silkroad and the Divan perform cosmopolitanism as a set of imaginaries and practices, and how the performance of cosmopolitanism is as a strategic resource to extend opportunities, consolidate power, and further other agendas. Chapter 1 will define cosmopolitanism drawing on the definitions of Gerard Delanty and David T. Hansen, both who sought to disavow cosmopolitanism from its baggage in order to make it more useful. Defining cosmopolitanism will help us examine the two ensembles in light of cosmopolitanism in various respects. This chapter will also look at how the founding of the ensembles can be attributed to “authorship” of Yo-Yo Ma, Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim, as exemplary of the responsiveness and agency that is characteristic of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is also characterized by a dialectical tension from the paradoxical dedication to the ideals of unity and diversity, the new and the old, the strange and the familiar, the universal and the particular. Chapter 2 will examine the Silkroad and the Divan as a set of cosmopolitan imaginaries and practices. I will examine how difference is imagined through ensemble membership, and how unity is imagined through repertoire and the ensemble. This chapter will conclude with how these aspects contributes to the performance of cosmopolitanism in the Silkroad and the Divan. Chapter 3 will look at how the performance of cosmopolitanism is used as a strategic resource to further various agendas of different agents, which can include expanding opportunities or consolidating power. These agendas can range from cultural diplomacy to personal agendas of career advancement. I do not want to argue that music does not bring about cosmopolitanism, nor that cosmopolitanism should not be an aspiration. Rather, I want to show

20 Craig Jeffrey and Colin McFarlane, “Performing Cosmopolitanism,” Environment and Planning D: ​ Society and Space 26 (2008): 420, http://doi.org/10.1068/d2603ed. ​

7 how ideologies are often used to further certain (and sometimes conflicting) agendas despite their perception as being above politics. And as a strategic resource, cosmopolitanism can become counterproductive by exacerbating the problems that it is addressing. By examining these questions, I would like to understand why music seems to be so appealing to the cosmopolitan mindset. How do musical projects engage cosmopolitanism, and how does both music and cosmopolitanism collectively work towards ideology and other agendas? And if we are to understand cosmopolitanism as a human or moral ethos and as an ethical way of life, how can we further understand the role music can play in instilling cosmopolitanism sensibilities (and to whom)?

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Chapter 1: Cosmopolitanism and Music

Cosmopolitanism and Dialogue

Cosmopolitanism has been researched and employed in a variety of ways, so much so that it has been criticized for its “aspir[ation] to be too many things to too many people.”21 There are different “types” of cosmopolitanisms, such as political, economic, moral, with different qualifiers, such as weak and strong, vernacular, rooted, discrepant, etc. Negative connotations of cosmopolitanism also abound, especially with its associations of elitism, universalism, rootlessness and being morally abject. However, to David T. Hansen, the myriad ways in which cosmopolitanism can be used and applied to different disciplines and studies denote “neither cacophony nor conceptual confusion, but rather serious interest in illuminating significant aspects of the human prospect today.”22 It demonstrates the adaptability and utility of the concepts, and it has been pointed out that “cosmopolitanism is most meaningful in practice, in context, and in the very specificity that the term seems to avoid. It is perhaps most meaningful in its applied localities; each instance of its manifestations belies the difficulties of its universal aspirations.”23 In fact, to acknowledge the multiplicity within cosmopolitanism can be considered a cosmopolitan act. In order for cosmopolitanism to be useful as an analytical concept, the definition must be narrowed down. Gerard Delanty and David T. Hansen have attempted to outline certain specifics of cosmopolitanism to attempt to alleviate the baggage that it has accumulated over the years. I have drawn on their definitions to attempt to come to a more specific understanding of cosmopolitanism, one that can be useful analytically. The type of cosmopolitanism I would like to engage with is cosmopolitanism as an orientation or an attitude, or what Delanty identifies as a type of normative moral philosophy. Cosmopolitanism is difficult to identify in the “everyday,”

21 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 151. 22 Ibid., 152. ​ ​ 23 Camilla Fojas (2005), vii-viii… quoted in Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 156,

9 especially from the many different “dispositions and attitudes human beings express in the daily vicissitudes of life.”24 Delanty gives a base description of normative cosmopolitanism as about the value of taking into account the perspective of the other and placing oneself within a wider whole, which can generally be taken to be the world, as indicated by the Greek term ‘cosmos’, meaning the world community as opposed to a more narrow definition of community… However, the central idea of cosmopolitanism remains, namely the claim that individuals and the groups to which they belong have obligations to others beyond their immediate context.25

This base definition of cosmopolitanism is very general, and makes apparent how the concept of cosmopolitanism can applied to so many different fields of study. Hansen further identifies cosmopolitanism as “the capacity to fuse reflective openness to the new with reflective loyalty to the known,”26 while Delanty adds that it “leads to processes of self-transformation arising out of the encounter with others in the context of global concerns.”27 As Hansen suggests, the applicability of cosmopolitanism as a concept lie in emphasis. Using Hansen’s and Delanty’s definitions, I would like to create working definition of cosmopolitanism as a normative orientation or philosophy defined by an openness to a transformative and productive engagement with the other through a reflective and critical negotiation of dialectical tensions. This definition will be explicated below. Cosmopolitanism is not to be confused with globalization and internationalism and other synonymous phenomena. Rather, cosmopolitanism can be seen as a reaction to these phenomena, as a normative philosophy arising out of the tensions that occur from the “the encounter of the global with the local or national,” and “it exists in relations of tension and in transformative dynamics.”28 The encounter between the global and the local can be reframed as the encounter with the other, and such encounters can result in tensions arising from the relationality between the self and the other. Hansen argues that cosmopolitanism should not be considered a “new ​ identity” that replaces another one, such as a national identity, but

24 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Education: Philosophy for Educators in Our Time,” Religious Education ​ 112, no. 2 (2017): 212. 25 Delanty, “Not All is Lost in Translation,” 375. 26 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 153. 27 Gerard Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals 82/83 (September ​ ​ 2008): 218. 28 Ibid., 221. ​ ​

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as an orientation toward the affairs of life in which a person comes to grips with and holds his or her identity (or identities) in a kind of generative or productive tension with those of other people …the narrative tension in a fine novel, film, poem, or theatrical performance that draws us in rather than repels us.”29

These tensions can also be viewed in terms of modernity, and as such, have been articulated by Delanty as tensions between the global and the local, and the universal and the particular.30 Hansen has also articulated the tensions as between the old and the new, and between multiculturalism and pluralism.31 Cosmopolitanism as a response to the tensions between the global and the local then is conscious of the issues of power dynamics. Thus one of the main tenets of cosmopolitanism is the negotiation between these dialectical forces in a reflective and dialogic manner rather than a firm belief in one or the other. Delanty articulates this as a sort of mediating aspect of cosmopolitanism: I see cosmopolitanism as offering a mid-way position: it defends certain universal capacities in human societies as to how they seek answers to certain questions, while recognizing that the ways in which they pose the questions and find solutions will be influenced, but not determined by, cultural context, as contextualists would argue, and nor, as universalists would require, with the same outcome, as different justifications and outcomes are possible. For these reasons, then, cosmopolitanism is both a pluralizing phenomenon as well as one that preserves a relation to unity.32

What Delanty identifies in this passage is that the universalism of cosmopolitanism lies the rational capabilities of human beings to be reflective and critical. This is reflected in Hansen’s modifier to his definition of cosmopolitanism as the capacity to combine “reflective (rather than naïve) openness to the new with reflective (rather than dogmatic) loyalty to the known.”33 A “dogmatic loyalty to the known” would imply that there are set, unmoving principles to abide by, which would go against the idea of contingency and fluidity of cultures and identity. And “naïve openness to the new” implies a type of complacent and uncritical attitude. Thus, it is important to note that cosmopolitan universalism is “procedural in substance rather than foundational” ​ ​

29 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Education,” 212. 30 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 221. 31 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 156. 32 Delanty, “Not all is Lost in Translation,” 377. 33 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 157.

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(Delanty)34, and that “cosmopolitan takes form in ongoing reflection, appreciation, and criticism ​ ​ concerning what is universal” (Hansen).35 In other words, in order for cosmopolitanism to be critical, the dialectical tension must be maintained through constant reflection and negotiation. This is especially crucial because cosmopolitanism is based on the belief that cultures and identities are always fluid and in constant flux. The constantly evolving and transforming nature of cultures and identities lead to a pluralizing force in cosmopolitanism, unified by the universal capacity of human beings to be constantly reflective and critical of the tensions that arise. The process of negotiating tensions leads to the potential for self-transformation. Delanty identifies this possibility as occurring through deliberation and the dialogic act: Identifying cosmopolitanism with self-transformation in the light of the encounter with others in responses to the challenges of globality, it is possible further to specify it as a condition that occurs through deliberation. It is through deliberation, as Habermas has argued, that hitherto assumptions are revised in light of the perspective of the other. In this sense cosmopolitanism is dialogic but also critical.36

What role does dialogue and the dialogic process play in cosmopolitanism? Dialogue does not ​ just have to refer to verbal dialogue, but it can refer to the nature of engagement between people, i.e. in a musical dialogue, or a dialogic negotiation of difference. Hansen notes that ​ bias, prejudice, presupposition, or assumption is a necessary ground for any dialogical act. Otherwise such an act cannot get under way and persons remain mute before the world. People necessarily speak from who or what they have become up to that moment. 37

Dialogue then necessarily involves an expression from one person, and such an expression necessarily comes from a place of biases as made up from that person’s past experiences. Dialogue has been defined by Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault as an exchange of information and communication that is both “reciprocal and multidirectional.”38 As a reciprocal act, dialogue and dialogic acts involve both expressing oneself and listening to the expressions of

34 Delanty, “Not all is Lost in Translation,” 376. 35 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 162; my own emphasis. 36 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 219. 37 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity: New Modes of Educational Practice in Globalizing Times,” Curriculum Inquiry 44, no. 1 (2014): 10. ​ ​ 38 Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault, “Moving from Monologue to Dialogue to Collaboration: The Three Layers of Public Diplomacy,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, 1 ​ ​ (2008): 18.

12 the other. Dialogue then can be considered a manifestation of the need to be heard and its solution, which according to Cowan and Arsenault is an important in diplomacy: While there has been very little, if any, experimental research on the impact of dialogue in relation to public diplomacy, a century of communication research demonstrates that the need to be heard represents an almost universal human characteristic.39 Dialogue, as satisfying the need to be heard and the desire for expression, is crucial not only to diplomacy, but to all relationships in general. If we look at dialogue as an interaction between a self and the other (defined as something unfamiliar and/or different), then we can further understand how dialogue is crucial to cosmopolitanism by affecting the relationship between the self and the other. Cowen and Arsenault observe that participating in dialogue can impact the viewpoint of those involved towards the other: Democratization scholars also consistently find that individuals are more likely to feel favorably toward those with opposing viewpoints and consider political outcomes as fair, if not correct, if they have the opportunity to engage in discussion and debate.40 This happens perhaps because having one’s voice heard, and having the opportunity to willingly negotiate with the new information they are receiving from the other is affirming. In fact, the willingness to participate in a dialogue and having that reciprocated is enough to generate goodwill on all sides towards the other. This reciprocality is part of a trust that builds in new relationships. As such, Cowen and Arsenault observe that “the very act of exchanging information, or illustrating a willingness to exchange information, can lay the groundwork for deeper attachments,”41 because a willingness to listen and to show a respect for thoughtful, alternate voices may help to ameliorate conflicts, or at least facilitate understanding of positions taken by helping participants to articulate their policies in more easily understandable terms.42 Thus dialogue can also lead to a state of mutual understanding. This mutual understanding also means an acknowledgement of the viewpoint of the other, which according to Delanty is a crucial first step in cosmopolitanism.43

39 Cowan and Arsenault, 19. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 18. ​ ​ 42 Ibid., 19. ​ ​ 43 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 220.

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While the formal definition of dialogic can refer to something that is dialogue-like, the term is often associated with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism. Thus, dialogic is also taken to mean an interaction between a self and the other where meaning is negotiated, and neither side is coerced or forced into an artificial synthesis. For Hansen, a “cosmopolitan-minded dialogue does not require persons to hammer out fixed metaphysical agreements about the nature or condition of humanity.”44 The concept of dialogism is present in cosmopolitan thought, or perhaps dialogism is an aspect of cosmopolitanism. Both show an openness to difference without the need to subsume one side in another or to force a synthesis between them. Participating in dialogue and dialogic interaction with the other can result in a transformation. This transformation is not a coerced agreement or synthesis by dominating the other side. Rather, it is a reflective transformation of the self achieved through a willingness to listen to the other, in which the new knowledge shifted self-understanding away from the biases and prejudices that started as the departure point of the dialogic act. This can lead to a new perception of not only the other but the self, and the relationship between the self, the other, and the collective whole (whether a community or the world). These new relationships then also contribute to the ever-changing self.45 It is no wonder that Scholars in the disciplines of communication, social psychology, and political science offer a range of evidence that dialogue, under the right conditions, can be integral to bridging social barriers and fostering or improving goodwill across groups.46 Dialogue and dialogic acts are means in the mutual participation on all sides in the negotiation of differences can lead to a goodwill in forming new relationships. And this is especially true when there is no pressure to subsume the differences into a synthesis, which would risk erasing the difference. The new relationships can lead to new understanding of the self and of others. Finally, the development of goodwill can lead to the sustenance of the cosmopolitan openness to difference and the other, and the continued participation in further dialogue, or what Delanty

44 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 162. 45 This is also understood by Hansen: “... in generating relations with self, other, and world, people bring into being new beings: namely, themselves, again however modest the transformations in personhood may be in each particular moment;” “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 7. 46 Cowan and Arsenault, 19.

14 calls the “the creation and articulation of communicative models of world openness in which societies undergo transformation.”47

Creating Cosmopolitan Projects

An aspect of cosmopolitanism that is both heavily emphasized by Delanty and Hansen is the creative agency inherent in the universal capacity of humans to problem solve. Hansen describes through viewing human beings as “morally creative rather than merely created ​ ​ ​ creatures.”48 In this section, I want to view how Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said acted with “creativity” by founding the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. By doing so, they acted with responsiveness rather than mere reactiveness to create new “communicative models of world openness in which societies undergo transformation” through music. I would also like to put the actions of Ma, Barenboim and Said into further focus by looking at them through a perspective inspired by literary cosmopolitanism, which is described by Collins and Gooley: Studies of literary cosmopolitanism, then, zoom in at the level of the imaginary and the aspirational. They thrive on a recognizably Western and elite notion of authorship in which the author is a kind of intellectual—thinking about, reflecting upon, and prospectively reimagining the world through the medium of fiction, and from within a certain kind of tradition. The author-centered approach… gives access to the conscious and reflective element that distinguishes cosmopolitanism from other kinds of global relationality and from empirically accessible processes of stylistic hybridization.49

Collins and Gooley’s emphasis on authorship puts into perspective the founding of the Silkroad and the Divan as part of the deliberate as well as “conscious and reflective element that distinguishes cosmopolitanism.” Like literary cosmopolitanism studies, I would like to focus on cosmopolitanism at the “level of the imaginary and the aspirational” as reflected in the authorship of the founders. What specific aims did they intend to achieve through the musical ensembles, and how? I will examine the rhetoric used to describe the ensembles by both media

47 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 222. 48 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 4. 49 Collins and Gooley, 147… 148.

15 and the ensemble members and founders, to understand how the ensembles aspires towards and imagines cosmopolitanism. In the “author-centered” approach then, we shall first focus on the “authors.” Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said can all be described as cosmopolitan individuals in a dual sense: one is through Brock’s definition of the identity-thesis of cosmopolitanism, in which they are marked by various cultures, and the other as having a cosmopolitan orientation or outlook. At the very least, they can be described with hyphenated-nationalities (as Chinese-American, Argentinian-Israeli, and Palestinian American). The founders’ respective backgrounds and history of international mobility provide conditions amenable to developing cosmopolitanism. And not coincidentally, they all had musical backgrounds that potentially played a part in their developing sense of cosmopolitanism, eventually leading them to found the musical projects.50 Ma’s career as a renowned classical cellist has led him to travel to many different places, encountering many different people and learning from those experiences, inspiring him to found the Silk Road Project. The initial workshop of the Divan was inspired by the many meetings and conversations between Said and Barenboim on their shared passion in music and interest in the Middle East.51 Subsequently, the the cosmopolitan views of Ma, Barenboim and Said are very much reflected in the ways they imagined music would help in their cosmopolitan projects. The multicultural and international conditions that influenced the founders are emphasized in the various documentations of the founders and their projects. In an article written for the Smithsonian Silk Road Folklife Festival in which the Silkroad Ensemble participated, Ma emphasized the various cultural influences as an integral part of the Silkroad: If you accept that the Silk Road is still present in our world as an inspirational symbol of intercultural meetings, then there are many people alive today whose lives exemplify modern-day Silk Road stories. I am one of them.”52 In the documentary film of the Silkroad Ensemble, The Music of Strangers, Ma’s cosmopolitan identity is introduced through an old clip ​ ​ in which the famous conductor, Leonard Bernstein, introduces 7-year old Ma as “A Chinese

50 Refer to the introduction. 51 “Interview: Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said Discuss Parallels Between Music and Culture,” NPR, 28 December 2002, https://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/transcripts/2002/dec/021228.simon2.html. 52 Yo-Yo Ma, “A Journey of Discovery,” Smithsonian Folklife Festival, accessed 7 June, 2018. ​ ​ https://festival.si.edu/2002/the-silk-road/a-journey-of-discovery/smithsonian

16 cellist, playing old French music for his new American compatriots.”53 The juxtaposition of nationalities mentioned serve to highlight the multinational affiliations that most likely influenced Ma’s cosmopolitan orientation. Like the documentary for the Silkroad, the “cosmopolitan identities” of Barenboim and Said are highlighted right at the beginning of their joint book dedicated “to the young musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Workshop,” Parallels ​ and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music Society. This is done by foregrounding the multiple ​ affiliations of both Barenboim and Said in the beginning with the question posed by Ara Guzelimian, the moderator of these talks: “Where are you at home? Or do you ever feel at home? Do you feel yourself in perpetual motion?”54 Both Said and Barenboim offered similar responses, in which they described the various moves and places that they have experienced, both personal and work related. Barenboim, whose grandparents were Russian-Jewish, was born in Argentina and later moved to Tel Aviv at the age of 10, before moving around Europe to pursue his musical career.55 Barenboim responds to the question with various answers, in that he feels at home “in the idea of Jerusalem,” or “in the company of a very few close friends” (of which Said is one), ​ ​ and more importantly, that his “feeling of being at home somewhere is really a feeling of transition, as everything is in life… I am happiest when I can be at peace with the idea of fluidity.”56 Said was born in Jerusalem to Palestinian parents, but moved to Cairo at a young age, before moving to the United States. Although Said expressed extreme fondness for Cairo, he ended his part with a similar sentiment, “the sense that identity is a set of currents, flowing ​ currents, rather than a fixed place or a stable set of objects. I certainly feel that about myself.”57 Following this, Barenboim responded to Said: I’m sure that when you read Goethe, you feel, in a funny way, German, as I do when conducting Beethoven or Bruckner. This was one of the lessons of our workshop in Weimar. Precisely that it’s not only possible to have multiple identities, but also, I would

53 The Music of Strangers, 6:10. ​ 54 Barenboim and Said, 3. ​ ​ 55 “Interview: Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said Discuss Parallels Between Music and Culture,” NPR, 28 ​ ​ December 2002, https://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/transcripts/2002/dec/021228.simon2.html and Barenboim and ​ Said, 3. ​ 56 Barenboim and Said, 4. 57 Ibid., 5. ​ ​ ​

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say, something to aspire toward. The sense of belonging to different cultures can only be enriching.58

Thus in their joint book alone, they have expressed very cosmopolitan notions about the fluidity of identity, the possibility of multiple affiliations, a varied sense of home, and an openness to the other. These are the cosmopolitan aims to which Barenboim and Said dedicate to the Divan Orchestra. Barenboim and Said cite a multicultural upbringing as integral to their belief in fluidity of identity. This plays an important part in their creation of the ensembles, as the ensembles both demonstrate in various ways that individuals are not to be limited to a mono-cultural identity. By creating their respective ensembles, Ma, Barenboim and Said are part of those who, according to Hansen, individuals and communities can respond, in a cosmopolitan-minded spirit, to contemporary pressure on their senses of identity, home, and purpose. It shows how creativity-in-response-to-change materializes in diverse, unscripted forms from which other people, including from very different cultural origins, can learn and benefit.59

For these ensembles, “contemporary pressure” comes in different forms. In 1998, Yo-Yo Ma60 founded the Silk Road Project “seeking to understand the fear and insecurity sparked by globalization.”61 He sought to explore how differences have also “ brought extraordinary possibilities for working together,” and decided to use and explore the Silk Road as such a model.62 At that point in his acclaimed career as a classical cellist, Ma had participated in many “crossover” projects,” making the Silk Road Project a “logical continuation” of his ventures.63 In 2000, musicians from various traditions and countries gathered at a workshop at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, forming the Silkroad Ensemble. The events of September 11 solidified the belief

58 Parallels and Paradoxes, 6. ​ ​ 59 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 5. 60 Yo-Yo Ma is commonly credited as the main founder of the Silk Road Project, but the following source also credits “a group of scholars and world musicians” in founding the project, “Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble: Music from the Silk Road Project (Digital)”, Boston Symphony Orchestra, accessed 10 June 2018, ​ ​ https://www.bso.org/Merchandise/Detail/44973. 61 “Silkroad Overview,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018, ​ ​ http://d1ousuiwy40guk.cloudfront.net/attacheds/1658/original/Silkroad_Overview_web.pdf?1507914421. 62 “About Us,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 12 August 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/about-us. ​ ​ 63 Harm Langenkamp, “From Monologue to Dialogue(?): The Poetics and Politics of Inter/Musical Collaboration,” (Master Thesis, Utrecht University: 2007), 138.

18 of Ma and others who participated in the beginning Tanglewood workshop that the Silkroad was necessary. Today, the Silkroad Ensemble is a collective of musicians from the Eurasian and American continents that feature both performers and composers that appear “in many configurations and settings.”64 Together, they aim to be an ensemble that “engages difference, sparking radical cultural collaboration and passion-driven learning to build a more hopeful world.”65 For Barenboim and Said, the Arab-Israeli conflict was the catalyst for the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was founded only a year after in 1999, when Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said started a workshop for Israeli, Palestinian, and other Arab musicians in in Weimar, Germany66 (which Yo-Yo Ma also participated in).67 The workshop was intended to traverse the political divide between Israelis and Palestinians and other Arabs by providing them with an alternative meeting space in music. The hope is that the individuals who have always known the other as an enemy could interact with their respective others, with “a hope to replace ignorance with education, knowledge and understanding; to humanize the other; to imagine a better future.”68 The workshop developed into the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, named after a set of poems by Goethe.69 In 2002, they were given funding and residency in Seville by the autonomous regional government of Andalusia, where they subsequently hold annual summer rehearsals in preparation for upcoming tours. Since the founding of the Divan, Mariam Said has been active in the Divan since her late husband’s death in 2003.70 As of 2017, Yo-Yo Ma has stepped down from his role as Artistic Director of the Silkroad, and instead is replaced by Jeffrey Beecher, Nicholas Cords, and Shane

64 “Silkroad Musicians,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018, ​ ​ http://www.silkroadproject.org/ensemble/artists/haruka-fujii. 65 “Silkroad Overview.” 66 “Equal in Music,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 12 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/. 67 “Edward Said,” Barenboim-Said Foundation USA, accessed 12 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.barenboimsaidusa.org/edward-w-said.html 68 “Equal in Music,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 12 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/. 69 “The Foundation,” Barenboim-Said Foundation USA, accessed 12 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.barenboimsaidusa.org/who-we-are.html#about_foundation. 70 Specifically as the Vice President of the Barenboim-Said Foundation USA. “A Founding Vision,” Barenboim-Said Akademie, accessed 12 August 2018, https://barenboimsaid.de/about/history.

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Shanahan as Co-Artistic Directors.71 Despite these changes, both ensembles have had award-winning documentaries made about them, and their respective founders also have garnered several awards for their work on the projects. The ensembles’ longevity and sustained success is evidence of the existence of continuous support, both financial and otherwise. But perhaps it is also proof of the constant relevance of the cosmopolitan visions put forth by both ensembles? The cosmopolitan aspirations of the musical ensembles are reflected in part in the imaginary set up by the set of imagery and ideals associated with their respective namesakes, creating a Silk Road imaginary as well as a West-Eastern Divan imaginary. The Silk Road was an “idealist model for the post-cold war era,” or a “metaphor of cultural rapprochement and mutual exchange, a symbolic alternative to inequitable modes of exchange associated with colonialism and imperialism.”72 In the face of globalization anxieties, difference can be increasingly perceived as threatening, and cultural traditions are perceived to be in danger of disappearing. The Silk Road emerged as an enticing symbolic representation of intercultural exchange. Thus, research on the Silk Road proliferated throughout the post-cold war period, which included an UNESCO project in 1988 that was “Underwritten by the belief that study, preservation, and revitalization will make cultural traditions in isolation more resilient in the face of segregating forces…”73As evidenced from the description above, the notion of the Silk Road provided an ideal model of cultural diplomacy. Implied in this model is a mode of a less hegemonic engagement with different cultural others seeking to preserve their respective traditions. In this light of cultural preservation, the Silk Road imaginary can be seen as a model of multiculturalism. Sarah Silverman notes, “nostalgia for the pre-modern authentic is not only a strategy of marketing but also a strategy of representing identity.”74 According to Harm

71 “Yo-Yo Ma steps down from Silkroad Ensemble,” The Strad, 25 October 2017, https://www.thestrad.com/news/yo-yo-ma-steps-down-from-silkroad-ensemble/7230.article. 72 Harm Langenkamp, “Contested Imaginaries of Collective Harmony: The Poetics and Politics of “Silk Road” Nostalgia in China and the West,” in China and the West: Music, Representation, and Reception (Ann Arbor: ​ ​ University of Michigan Press, 2017), 243-264, 253. ​ ​ 73 Langenkamp, “Contested Imaginaries,” 253. 74 Carol Silverman, ‘Trafficking in the Exotic with “Gypsy Music,” in Balkan Popular Culture and the ​ Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 335–61, ​ 343.

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Langenkamp, the Silk Road acts as such by representing “a past seemingly defined by cross-cultural exchange, a golden age of perceived universalism to which we (it is implied) should aspire to return.”75 These two quotes point to how the Silk Road imagery, romantically conceived as a “pre-modern” mixing of “authentic” cultures, can be used to set up an imaginary site of cultural exchange in the Silkroad Ensemble. As such, it can also set up a cosmopolitan imaginary through the openness towards the other implied through cultural exchange. It is through the aspect of the Silk Road imaginary as a site of romanticized intercultural exchange that Ma wishes to use to challenge normative conceptions of culture and difference. He does so by identifying the existence of many so-called “cosmopolitan identities,” defined by Gillian Brock as “one who is marked or influenced by various cultures,”76 or more importantly, an identity that is not defined solely by a uni-national affiliation. This is reflected in Ma’s connection of the Silk Road to present day individuals, challenging both the pre-modern “traditional” cultures trope of the Silk Road imaginary, as well as the notion of culture as “authentic.” With the premise that all traditions are mixed (“But what are ‘authentic’ traditions? Look deeply enough into any one, and you’ll find elements of others”77), Ma brings the silkroad project more towards cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is also articulated through Ma’s goal to find the common aspects between cultures/through difference that can bind, and the different ones that can be learned from: “Discovering what's shared, and what can be appropriated, refined, and restyled, is the essential work of cultural exchange and innovation.”78 In other words, this is Ma’s version of loyalty to the known and openness to the new, and his way of attempting to unify while preserving diversity. The cosmopolitan goals of the Silkroad Ensemble is especially apparent in the documentary film, The Music of Strangers.79 With no single omniscient narrator, the film ​ ​ consists of clips of the voices of those who participated in the ensemble, forming a

75 Harm Langenkamp, “Conflicting Dreams of Global Harmony in US-PRC Silk Road Diplomacy,” in Music and Diplomacy from the Early Modern Era to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 83-100, ​ 84. 76 Brock, 2. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 The Music of Strangers, directed by Morgan Neville (2015; USA; Tremolo Productions), Netflix. ​ ​

21 collective—yet fragmented—narration. The beginning of the film demonstrates Ma’s comments quoted above, namely the “many people alive today whose lives exemplify modern-day Silk Road stories,”80 Members of the group are introduced by name and then country, and their backstories all seem to indicate multiple attachments to different places.81 The cosmopolitan ethical stance of the Silkroad members (at least some of them) are expressed through the tropes of tradition and innovation. In general, they invoke a belief that innovation is a transformative process achieved through encountering and engaging difference,82 and that such a process is necessary to keep a culture and tradition alive.83The recurring trope of mediating between tradition and innovation, between what’s shared and what’s different, is reflective of the interests of the Silkroad members in maintaining the cosmopolitan tension between the old and new, and innovation implies a creation of new forms and transformations. Indeed, there seems to always be care in expressing the “reflectiveness” in mediation, a quality identified by Delanty and Hansen as crucial to cosmopolitanism. But the most resounding expression of a devotion to a critical cosmopolitan transformation can be found the ending of the film, where Ma quotes T. S. Eliot: “We shall never cease from exploration. And the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”84 This quote seems to emphasize the journey of self-transformation, as gaining a new perspective through learning more about others in the world. The inspiration for the title of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra came from the collection of poems from Goethe of the same name. According to Said, Goethe was inspired to

80 Ma, “A Journey of Discovery.” 81 Kinan Azmeh, a clarinetist who grew up in Damascus, reflects on the Syrian revolution. 8:46 Kayhan Kalhor, a kamancheh player from Iran, recounts having to flee the country due to the revolution, and traveling on foot through countries like Romania, Yugoslavia, and Italy, 24:12; Wu Man, a pipa player from China, tells of the ​ ​ transformative concert given by Isaac Stern in China after the Cultural Revolution in China, Music of Strangers, ​ ​ 16:17. 82 Azmeh: “Definitely America is very different. But I’m more interested in actually appreciating the differences. What you have that I don’t have. Not that I want to take it away from you, no, but that I want to learn from you, no?” 39:41; Cristina Pato: “When you learn something from another culture, you will grow more if you ​ ​ bring it back to your own culture,” Music of Strangers, 1:30:03. ​ ​ ​ ​ 83 Ma: “There is no tradition that exists today that is not the result of a really successful invention. But unless a tradition keeps evolving, it naturally becomes smaller and smaller,” Music of Strangers, 55:05. ​ ​ ​ 84 Music of Strangers, 1:31:46. ​ ​ ​

22 explore Islam and Persian poetry after being given a page of the Koran from a German soldier fighting in Spain.85 Goethe represented an example of engaging with the “other” through art:

The interesting thing about Goethe—and also about our experience in Weimar—was that art, for Goethe especially, was all about a voyage to the “other,” and not concentrating on oneself, which is very much a minority view today. There is more of a concentration today on the affirmation of identity, on the need for roots, on the values of one’s culture and one’s sense of belonging. It’s become quite rare to project one’s self outward, to have a broader perspective.86

In this quote, Said’s emphasis on the “outward projection of self” is a cosmopolitan openness to differences, in which expanding perspectives and learning from the other offers a refreshing alternative to what he perceives as a divisive “affirmation” of belonging. Goethe, who wrote the Divan after encountering the “other” of Persian culture, can also be understood to represent both a reflective, critical and productive engagement with the other. Similar to Hansen’s view, Barenboim and Said’s goal to inspire cosmopolitanism is not intended as a solution to the conflict: The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is, of course, unable to bring about peace. What it can do, however, is to create the conditions for understanding. It can awaken the curiosity, and then perhaps the courage, for each to listen to the narrative of the other, and at the very least to accept its legitimacy.87

In this sense, the primary aim is to create the opportunity in which the different sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict can listen to the other’s narrative in the first place. After all, according to Delanty, “Recognition of the perspective of the other is the key to cosmopolitanism and it makes little sense speaking of cosmopolitanism if this is absent.”88 Not only are Barenboim and Said then hoping that one would listen to the other’s narrative, but that there would be an ongoing dialogue, as dialogue between the two was what inspired this project.

Our project may not change the world, but it is a step forward. Edward Said and myself see our project as an ongoing dialogue, where the universal, metaphysical language of

85 Barenboim and Said, 7. 86 Ibid.,, 11. ​ ​ ​ ​ 87 “The Power of Music: Europe’s commitment in the Middle East and in the world,” Daniel Barenboim, ​ ​ speech given in 29 January 2007, https://danielbarenboim.com/the-power-of-music-europes-commitment-in-the-middle-east-and-in-the-world/. 88 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 220.

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music links with the continuous dialogue that we have with young people, and that young people have with each other.89

Through continuing the dialogue then can cosmopolitanism arise, as dialogue can potentially lead to transformation and openness to others. By founding the musical ensembles as a response to the “contemporary pressures” on issues of identity and culture, Ma, Barenboim and Said were acting with the creative agency that is considered by Delanty and Hansen as characteristic of cosmopolitanism. Their respective ensembles, created in part through different imaginaries of cosmopolitan openness to the other, are founded as a space where a dialogic negotiation of difference can occur through the encounter with the other through music. The Silkroad and the Divan can be understood to comprise a part of cosmopolitan creativity as described by Hansen: In a cosmopolitan light, creativity is what people bring into being that is constituted by aesthetic, moral, political, and social meaning, however microscopic the scale may be. Put another way, in generating relations with self, other, and world, people bring into being new beings: namely, themselves, again however modest the transformations in personhood may be in each particular moment.90

The capacity for transformation arise from the dialogic interaction between the ensemble members, as they work together to create music, thus forming new relationships with each other and as a collective ensemble. Thus, as Delanty specifies, “The cosmopolitan imagination from the perspective of a critical social theory of modernity tries to capture the transformative moment, interactive relations between societies and modernities, the developmental and dialogic aspect.”91 In the next chapter, we will explore how cosmopolitanism is further imagined and performed specifically in the context of a musical ensemble.

89 “Vision,” Barenboim-Said Foundation USA, accessed 13 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.barenboimsaidusa.org/what-we-do.html#our-vision. 90 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 7. 91 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 227.

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Chapter 2: Performing Cosmopolitanism

Beckles Willson identifies the Divan as “a highly politicized, semi-public platform on which identities (Spaniards, Arabs and Jews) interact.” As such, she examines the ensemble as a type of museum made up of “curated subjects, bodies,” forming a “colonial display of non-European ethnicities and identities.” 92 From this point of view, we can identify both the Divan and the Silkroad as ensembles with carefully chosen aspects to achieve specific aims. For both of these projects, a narrative of collaboration is crucial to the cosmopolitan imaginary, particularly a display of collaboration where difference is not a divisive factor. The irony of cosmopolitan projects is that in order to perceive cultural collaboration, there needs to be a perceptible difference between the collaborators. Craig Jeffrey and Colin McFarlane notes that cosmopolitanism, as a strategic resource, can be performed as “set of imaginaries and practices.”93 In this chapter, I will look at how the Silkroad and Divan can be understood as a set of imaginaries and practices. In the previous chapter, I explored the imaginary of the Silk Road and Goethe’s Divan as setting up the cosmopolitan imaginary for the respective ensembles. Here, I will continue to see how the cosmopolitan imaginary operates specifically in the musical ensemble. As ensembles with cosmopolitan aims, I argue that cosmopolitanism imaginary in the Silkroad and the Divan is performed through the representations of difference and unity. Difference is imagined at the level of the ensemble memberships—as a set of “curated subjects and bodies.” Unity is perceived through the collaborative aspects of the ensemble as a whole and the performances of specific repertoires. I then examine how cosmopolitanism can be practiced in musical ensembles in general, and how it can be understood to be present in musical ensembles. By examining these aspects in the Silkroad and the Divan, I hope to further understand how these different aspects can present different methods of performing cosmopolitanism, and how they might contribute to a performance of different cosmopolitan narratives.

92 Rachel Beckles Willson, “The Parallax Worlds of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra,” Journal of the ​ Royal Musical Association 134, no. 2 (2009): 322. ​ 93 Jeffrey and McFarlance, 420.

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Imagining Difference

How is difference “imagined” within the Silkroad and the Divan? How is the self and the other constructed? As per the Silkroad imaginary, the Silkroad Ensemble can be seen as a “curated” collection of Silk Road bodies from the Silk Road countries (such as China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Mongolia)94 alongside those from North American countries such as the USA and Canada. On the official website, the musicians are all identified by their national affiliations next to their names, as well as the instruments they play (or their role, i.e. performer, composer, storyteller, or visual artist, etc.).95 The act of identifying the musicians by their nationality and their instrument both shows the diversity of the ensemble and renders the musicians as representative of their respective countries. But such a generalization acts as a first impression, as a further click on the names of the musicians on the website will reveal more nuanced biographies that go beyond national identity.96 Aside from the national labels, the current Silkroad website avoids many essentialisms in the biographies of the musicians. The biographies of the musicians do not always tie the person to the instrument(s) that they play, which in turn could become a default cultural representation. The shakuhachi and the kamancheh are listed without specific affiliations to a culture or place in the biographies of Kojiro Umezaki and Kayhan Kalhor respectively. The instruments are offered a non-restrictive ambiguity by not being labeled as culturally traditional instruments, even though they might not be considered as “commonplace” as “Western” instruments that might be considered as needing no descriptors, like a violin or piano. This can be understood as a way to avoid the generalization and reductiveness that can lead to practices of exoticism, where non-western elements are often seen as foreign and exotic elements subsumed into a Western framework. This desire to avoid exoticism is reflected in the biography of Wu Man, a pipa player from China. She is described as “an ambassador of Chinese music,” and the concluding sentence

94 Langenkamp, “From Monologue to Dialogue,”, f140. It is ironic in terms of the name that the country that is represented most in the Silkroad Ensemble is the United States. But this makes much more sense given the founding history, the headquarters and economic ties of the Ensemble and of Yo-Yo Ma. 95 “Ensemble,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/ensemble 96 And whether is identity is one that transcends the national, or perhaps complicates it, depends on the interpreter.

27 to her biography on the website is that “the best measure of her achievement is that her instrument, which dates back 2000 years, is no longer an exotic curiosity.”97 This sentence points to how exoticism can depend on the perception of strangeness and unfamiliarity. Wu Man’s efforts in championing the pipa rendered it as no longer exotic nor privy to exoticism. It also implies that participating in ensembles like the Silkroad can help “de-exoticize” certain cultures and instruments through exposure. The fact that cultural emphasis varies between biographies and that the cultural ties of the instruments are not always made explicit shows demonstrates an amount of flexibility in representation. This demonstrates an avoidance of exoticism and suggests a dedication to the diverse levels of relevance of cultural traditions to the ensemble musicians, giving the participating members agency in their own representation. Another factor in how difference is to be imagined in the Silkroad lie in the wording (or lack of) on their official website: “Silkroad creates music that engages difference, sparking radical cultural collaboration and passion-driven learning to build a more hopeful world.”98 Notable in this descriptor is the absence of terms such as “cultural difference” and the prefixes of “cross-” and “inter-” for cultural, words that were more prevalent in Ma’s early promotion of the Silk Road project. Instead of highlighting a difference across culture, the use of the more generalized terms of “difference” and “radical cultural collaboration” suggests that the view of “difference” is not subjected to one of culture, but can be more encompassing. It can be argued that the ambiguity of how the “difference” may be constructed is a positive reflection on the awareness of the contingent nature of difference construction, and a refusal to dictate the lines along which difference is drawn. Such ambiguity can be viewed more productively as flexibility on the part of the Silk Road project to challenge all individuals and groups to engage with the varying notions of difference. This is relevant in that the philosophy of engaging with the other is not limited to a cultural other, but can also be the individual other, showing devotion to pluralism. But the inclusion of “cultural collaboration” can also imply a dedication to multiculturalism, but with an emphasis on the collaborative potential of different cultures rather than divisiveness. This may also be why difference is not identified as “cultural difference,” as it would imply that cultural differences as the main divisive factor, and play into cultural

97 “Artists,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/ensemble/artists/wu-man 98 “Silkroad Overview”

28 essentialism. Thus, this vague and varied representation is one of the ways that the Silkroad positions itself as a cosmopolitan ensemble rather than just a multicultural one. The fact that “cultural” is linked to “collaboration” rather than difference seems to be a strategy to show the cosmopolitan paradox of dedication to pluralism and multiculturalism, and an adherence to the concept of the ever-fluid and changing individual and cultural identities. Despite attempts to construct difference in what seems to be an attempt to avoid eurocentrism, the ensemble still seems to be West-dominated. There is a disproportionate amount of musicians from the USA compared to all the other countries. While this is very likely due to the fact that the Silkroad Ensemble was founded by Ma, and American citizen, and has ties with several American institutions, this representation in national numbers can be read as another East-West dichotomy, with the USA as the main representation of the West, and many of the other countries as the East.99 But it nevertheless creates a stronger case for a “West and the rest” construction of the self and other, counterproductive to the imagining of difference mentioned previously. Goethe’s Divan imaginary sets up a context between an interaction of Europe and the Middle East for the Divan orchestra. However, it can be argued that the Divan members were curated more along the lines of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite that, national identities of its members go beyond the binary divide. This is in part due to the broad criteria for membership:100 “Applicants should have a national background of any country from the Middle East, North-Africa or Spain.”101 The realities of the Divan members are much like that of the founders: hyphenated, and more “cosmopolitan,” such as an Albanian Israeli citizen and a Kurdish musician from Syria.102 According to Beckles Willson, the makeup of the Divan also depends largely on the “curators,” which include not only Daniel Barenboim and Mariam Said, but an array of other organizations and agencies who fund and invest in the orchestra. The Divan is

99 “Indeed, the problematic ways in which the West serves as such a reference point may be one hallmark of modernity,” Silverman, 359. ​ 100 Beckles Willson expressed concern over the “breadth of membership” of the Divan because it could mean that many of the Divan participants might be far-removed from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which runs the risk of the Divan becoming a “detached European-American model of a ‘better’ Middle East” in “Parallax,” 332. 101 “Join the Divan,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 13 August 2018, https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/audition/. 102 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 331.

29 financed by the Andalusian government, which explains why “of Spanish background” is also a criteria for eligibility in the orchestra. In 2006, a Turkish musician also participated in the orchestra due to a sponsored concert performance in Istanbul.103 The presence of the Spanish and the Turkish musicians served as a sort of “neutral space in which the Arab and Israeli groups might interact productively.”104 In 2006, Beckles Willson observed that the Spanish players in the orchestra did not choose sides and avoided the political conflict. When asked, Mariam likened the Spanish players to Europe in their role as the “glue.”105 But the Spanish participation in the orchestra is not widely advertised (aside from its part in the audition criteria). In much of media, the Divan is often said to be made up of “Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians,” description that was used for the initial Weimar workshop in 1999. Furthermore, the names and nationalities of the orchestral members are not listed on the webpage aside from a few profiled musicians. This is due to security concerns, as many of the musicians risk ostracization or worse from their government, family, friends and peers by participating in the Divan. That is also why in the observations of Beckles Willson, Beecher106 and Riiser107 almost none of the orchestral members are mentioned by name. Because of the this and the rare mentions of the Spanish participations, the Arab-Israeli conflict is very much foregrounded in the Divan, giving the impression that this duality is reflective of the identities of the Divan musicians. What sort of “divide” are the ensembles overcoming by the nature of collaboration? Both ensembles are arguably about encountering the “other” in all senses, but it seems as if the Silkroad is primarily more about the cultural other, while the Divan is about encountering a political-cultural other. The main difference between the Silkroad and the Divan is that the latter has as its starting point a deep-rooted bas and prejudice against the other, viewing the “other” as the enemy,. And this image of the “other” as enemy is a violent one, and has been cultivated for a long time. Whereas the Silkroad does not start with such a strong aversion to the “other,” which can make openness to difference as also openness to newness. Newness in terms of the

103 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 331. 104 Ibid. ​ 105 Ibid. ​ 106 Devin G. Beecher, “Part Two: Perspectives on knowledge, from the Divan Orchestra and Providence Community MusicWorks,” New Directions for Youth Development 125 (2010): 127-40. ​ ​ 107 Solveig Riiser, “National Identity and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra,” Music & Arts in Action 2, no. ​ ​ 2 (2010): 19-37.

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Divan would not be primarily applicable to the “familiar enemy,” but perhaps as openness to a new type of relationship with the “enemy” (with others to mitigate the tension?). But the bottomline is that participation in the ensembles for both the Divan and Silkroad members, disregarding other motivations, can strongly symbolize and represent a cosmopolitan openness to difference and new relationships on the part of the musicians. The imaginary of difference becomes crucial when they are to be united collectively through the ensemble, and collaboratively through the repertoire.

Cosmopolitan Practices

Participation in a musical ensemble has many opportunities for practicing cosmopolitanism. One is the act of listening and expressing oneself, which is a necessary part of the processes for both music making and cosmopolitanism. The importance of expressing oneself and listening is an important part of the dialogic process as well as the process of music making, as Barenboim argues: Now, when you play music, whether you play chamber music or you play in an orchestra, you have to do two very important things and do them simultaneously. You have to be able to express yourself, otherwise you are not contributing to the musical experience, but at the same time it is imperative that you listen to the other. You have to understand what the other is doing. And the other may be doing the same as you, if he is sitting next to you if you're a string player, or he may play a different instrument and be in counterpoint to what you are doing.108

Making music in the ensemble sets up the dialogue by the necessity of the individual musicians in having to play, i.e. having their “voice” heard as as well as listening to the voice of others, which as stated previously is an integral part of the dialogic process. This is the manifestation of the “need to be heard” for both the self and the other. Because the simultaneous acts of listening and expression on the part of the performer, I would like to focus primarily on the process of music making over just listening. This is because listening can be a more “passive” act in contrast to the more “active” activity of performing, which requires both expression and listening.109 The simultaneous action of expressing oneself and listening to the other is what

108 Reith Lecture 4. 109 Although Frith notes the process of aesthetic judgement can include “listening as a way of performing” (110), Beckles Willson argues that in the act of music making, “Performers may have a more actively interactive

31 makes the performing musician more “active” than the merely “reactive” or “passive” action of listening. Thus although there are various participants in the act of “musicking” as coined by Christopher Small, for practices of cosmopolitanism in the ensemble I choose to focus on the performing musicians. It has been argued convincingly by Simon Frith that the process of music making in an ensemble is a dialogic process in which musicians negotiate selves and values. First of all, Frith notes that making music involves articulating the self and the other, as well as the whole or collective, “Identity is not a thing but a process - an experiential process which is most vividly grasped as music. Music seems to be a key to identity because it offers, so intensely, a sense of ​ ​ both self and others, of the subjective in the collective.”110 The embodied dialogic negotiation in the musical ensemble was observed by Devin Beecher, a French horn player who was able to observe and participate in a Divan: What I acquired in these two hours was a very interpersonal sort of knowledge that comes from making music with other people— even if I still knew little about these players’ histories and personalities, I now knew very well their playing styles, their strengths, and their weaknesses. This may in fact be one of the most concrete knowledges developed by the Divan Orchestra in their intensive workshop in Pilas and in the tours that follow. This is evident throughout Smaczny’s documentary, especially in an interview between the two concertmasters, Claude, from Lebanon, and Ilya, from Israel. Claude says, “The first two days it was funny, people are playing different, but now they are like a team, now they are playing together, now they understand more. . . . Now I know how he plays and he knows how the way I am. So we actually have some connection when we’re out on the same stand.” This is the inevitable result of playing together, and it is the beginning of a knowledge that should not be dismissed.111

What Beecher describes above is the negotiation in which individual musicians learn about the other’s styles, then reflect on their own individual style and adjust in order to play more cohesively as part of the same musical section. And the other musicians must also have done the same, so that at the end, both ended up learning about the other. Thus the musicians negotiated their own musical identity with the others in the group, individual and as a whole. The musicians subsequently negotiated new and transformed relationships with other individuals and within the

role with the imaginary “voice,” for their simultaneous submission and identification has more room for individual creativity than that of the passive listener,” “Parallax,” 336. 110 Simon Frith,Taking Popular Music Seriously: Selected Essays, Ashgate: Burlington (2007): 110. ​ ​ 111 Beecher, 134.

32 group. Beecher only perceived this process as purely musical knowledge passed on in the Divan. He became concerned with the lack of political dialogue in the Divan, and connectedly, that there would be no real social change with only musical knowledge and a lack of political dialogue, “When I expressed my concern to Ruth about the lack of the political discussions I had hoped to witness in Pilas, he responded: ‘You don’t need to talk about the ‘mission’ in order to experience the mission.’”112 Sebastian Ruth, who founded a musical project with the similar goals of using music to effect social change, thus cited the music as the “experience” of the social change, implying that music is the lived experience of dialogic negotiation that can affect social change. Then, Frith cites the process of aesthetic judgement as the act of negotiation between selves and other. Deciding what “sounds right” or wrong, and how a certain part should be played involves a dialogic process of negotiation between the members of the musical ensemble. It is by going through this process that individuals create an emergent group in which they can ​ ​ further negotiate common values: My point is not that a social group has beliefs which it then articulates in its music, but that music, an aesthetic practice, articulates in itself an understanding of both group ​ ​ relations and individuality, on the basis of which ethical codes and social ideologies are understood… it is not that social groups agree on values which are then expressed in their cultural activities (the assumption of the homology models) but that they only get to know themselves as groups )as particular organization of individuals and social interests, ​ ​ of sameness and difference ) through cultural activity, through aesthetic judgement. ​ ​ Making music isn’t a way of expressing ideas; it is a way of living them.113

Frith’s argues that music is not a mere homologous model, but rather the embodiment of negotiation that influences individual and group identity. Following this argument, t can be argued that music according to Frith’s definition can be understood as an embodiment of cosmopolitanism, acted out through music as a negotiation of tension between the self, other and the collective (the ensemble in this case). In fact, the last sentence in Frith’s quote is reflective of Hansen’s quote that cosmopolitanism, as human ethos, is a “philosophy for life rather than just a ​ ​ theoretical philosophy about life.”114 And if we are to understand cosmopolitanism as part of the ​ ​

112 Beecher, 137. 113 Frith, 110-1. 114 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Education,” 212.

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“mission” of the ensembles, then the musicians are “experiencing the mission” simply by making music as part of the ensemble. So how is cosmopolitanism practiced through music? Music gives the musicians an opportunity to be heard, allowing the musicians to establish their own voice. This in turn also gives them the agency to participate in dialogue, at least in musical dialogue. Musical dialogue can occur through learning about the musical styles and strengths of the other and negotiating aesthetic values and judgments. Responding to that knowledge results in the articulation of the self in relation to the other and the whole. Thus participation the group musical dialogue can establish goodwill and trust between the ensemble members, creating meaningful relationships. Such collaboration is important not only for successful musical performances, but for performing cosmopolitanism.

Performing Cosmopolitanism

Unity is imagined through the repertoire as the sonic collaboration of the collection of “others,” members who are represent difference. How do the different repertoire of the Silkroad and the Divan perform cosmopolitanism? This section, with its focus on the performance of cosmopolitanism, brings in the role of the listener as well as the performers (unlike the previous section of practicing cosmopolitanism). Of course, everyone’s interpretation of a performance is subjective and contingent, hence the use of “performative.” And as such, the following section is necessarily a nuanced and subjective take on the performance of cosmopolitanism in both of these ensembles, influenced by my own personal “biases, prejudices, presuppositions, or assumptions.” The sonic collaboration of cosmopolitanism in the Silkroad, as in the cosmopolitan imaginary, might need to rely on an audibly perceptible differences in order to represent their unification in a “cultural collaboration.” With the Silkroad as comprising of individual members playing individual instruments (unlike an orchestra, which is made up of instrumental sections), the sonic differences are from the individual instruments, specifically in their distinct “sounds” or timbre. It might not be incorrect to say that in order to create a sonic representation of

34 difference to largely “western” ears, there needs to be instruments that sound distinctly non-western to create a greater degree of perceived difference for a sonic narrative of an East-West blend. That is one way in which the music can be perceived, while another ear might perceive diverse “traditional” instruments, a representation of cultural collaboration. Another might hear the “traditional” instruments as exoticism, and the various musical works as “musical tourism,” while others might not hear the pieces as a mix of distinct cultural elements but as a style on its own. Exoticism can occur in the form of musical codes, or specific configurations of notes, timbre, and other aspects of sound that evoke certain associations understood as “exotic” or “different,” such as the musical interval of an augmented 2nd as signifying the “Oriental,” or the sound of a tabla as “Indian.” For the Silkroad Ensemble, where the sound of specific instruments can bring about “exotic” associations and connotations (such as the pipa as signifying China, or the shakuhachi as Japan), working and negotiating with such musical codes and stereotypes can provide a challenge of sonic stereotyping that the Divan might not have to deal with. Either way, the combination of the sonically distinct and different instruments playing collectively might be enough to demonstrate to the ears of the listeners a musical collaboration of individuals who found productive ways to work with difference and commonality. Because of the nature of the ensemble, the repertoire of the Silkroad often risks exoticism. In fact, Yo-Yo Ma acknowledges that the Silkroad has been criticized as a form of “cultural tourism.”115 Issues of exoticism, stereotypes, and biases are what the Silkroad grapple with in their repertoire. These are also mentioned by Hansen as the departure point in the dialogical act towards cosmopolitanism: bias, prejudice, presupposition, or assumption is a necessary ground for any dialogical act… People necessarily speak from who or what they have become up to that moment. Their prejudices or presumptions take from through the course of socialization and life experience.116 And so rather than viewing the Silkroad repertoire as a form of cultural tourism, it is more productive to view the stereotypes and assumptions as issues addressed through their repertoire. The Silkroad then proceeds to challenges these stereotypes and assumptions through a varied repertoire, one that is described by Langenkamp as being

115 Music of Strangers, 1:14:10. ​ ​ 116 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 9.

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located between these two extreme positions: whereas some compositions employ a modernist, postserial idiom, other works emanate from improvisatory sessions in which the joy of playing together seems to be more important than laboriously plowing one’s way through a score.117 The “two extreme positions” can be understood through the Silkroad’s cosmopolitan “loyalty to the known and openness to the new,” or in their words, “tradition and innovation.” The “traditional” repertoire can be understood to be the various folk and traditional songs they perform, as well as eurogenic music by composers inspired by the Silk Road countries, such as Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and Shostakovich. The “innovational” repertoire include the new arrangements of the folk songs, as well as newly composed music that can be considered more “modernist” or “avant-garde.”118 According to Tim Rutherford-Johnson, the combination of instruments in the ensemble is unusual enough that it makes it more difficult for other ensembles to perform it, which differs greatly from eurogenic/Western classical ensembles that can perform an extensive amount of works already written for their ensemble types, like the Divan. Thus, not only is the Silkroad “a very active commissioning body,” but It and its repertory exist in an almost exclusive symbiotic relationship, which raises the question, to what extent are its activities really promulgating a new kind of musical creativity as opposed to assuring the continuation of a particular “brand”?119 The question posed by Rutherford-Johnson can be rephrased so that the “continuation of a particular ‘brand’” can be understood to be synonymous with the “new kind of musical creativity.” By actively commissioning new music, the Silkroad is maintaining the tension of cosmopolitanism, between the old and the new, tradition and innovation. By doing so, the Silkroad brand is very cosmopolitan indeed. In fact, the titles of the Silkroad’s other albums can all be considered as an exploration of cosmopolitan concepts. These include Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet (2001), Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon (2005), New Impossibilities (2007), Off the Map (2009), and A Playlist without Borders (2013).120

117 Langenkamp, “From Monologue to Dialogue,” 120. 118 Ibid., 138-9. ​ ​ 119 Tim Rutherford-Johnson, “Mobility: Worldwide Flows, Networks, and Archipelago,” in Music After the ​ Fall : Modern Composition and Culture Since 1989, 88-114, Oakland: University of California, 2017: 93. ​ 120 “Silkroad Recordings,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 19 August 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/recordings.

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Both “extremes” of the Silkroad repertoire can serve to challenge culturally essentialist notions. The “avant-garde” as the “new” can potentially free certain instruments from certain stereotypes, allowing them to break certain cultural modes that may have been assigned to them. This can move in both directions: more “cultural” instruments such as the sheng play in a way and in music that is not considered “Chinese” specifically121 (such as in a more modernist and or contemporary style) shows the possibilities of the pipa beyond national representation, or not “essentialized” as being only Chinese. The “avant-garde” might symbolize just the “new” without the “old,” and the “strange” without the “familiar.” Thus arrangements and works that include more easily recognizable melodies and musical codes might be necessary in the narrative of negotiating the tensions between the old and new, strange and familiar. In particular, improvisatory sessions will achieve the more “organic” meetings between cultures as opposed to already composed pieces, because improvisation in part rely on a shared and familiar musical vocabulary, which can include melodies and other musical codes with certain cultural associations. As the musicians engage with these codes collectively, they are also engaged in the act of negotiating its meanings and associations, and participating in the process of changing said meanings.122 This is demonstrated in the album, Sing Me Home,123 in which “Explore[s] the ​ ​ ever-changing idea of home through original and traditional folk tunes interpreted by the Silk Road Ensemble… ”124 With this concept in mind then, “folk” melodies, or ones that are associated with “home,” are explored sonically in ways that can bring about new affiliations of home, in addition to old ones. This can range from hearing the pipa playing in a rendition of the American tune, “Heart and Soul,” or hearing Chinese lyrics set to Dvořák’s famous melody to the New World Symphony.125 The status and value of the eurogenic classical music repertoire is also a source of legitimacy and justification for Said and Barenboim in creating the Divan Orchestra. The genre of “Western Classical” music here is understood as the works composed mainly during the

121 Such as in “Going Home.”. 122 This process is explicated by Ingrid Monson in terms of “intermusicality” in her study of jazz improvisation as dialogue and conversation. 123 Silkroad Ensemble, Sing Me Home. Sony Music Entertainment, 2016. Spotify. ​ ​ 124 “Silkroad Recordings,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 19 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.silkroad.org/recordings. 125 To read my interpretation of “Going Home,” refer to the addendum.

37 so-called “common practice era,” and in particular, the works of many Austro-Germanic composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner among others. The Austro-Germanic repertoire was considered to be a mix of different styles at one point (as mentioned by Jan Ling and previously in the introduction). However, this repertoire has achieved a status of autonomy that developed further into claims of its universalism and modernity, giving it a certain power in discourse and status that sets it apart from other repertoire. Thus, it is important to acknowledge the discourses that have and continue to empower eurogenic classical repertoire. In particular, we will address three specific aspects used to legitimize the eurogenic classical repertoire, contributing to its use in cosmopolitanism. These aspects of the repertoire include polyphony, universality, and its status as a separate realm. In the eurogenic classical repertoire, the different textural sounds of the symphony orchestral instruments can understandably represent individual parts, but not necessarily cultural difference to those listening with “Western” ears. Instead, the sound of the symphony orchestra is often understood to sound as a cohesive whole under the baton of a conductor. Other sonic markers of difference in eurogenic classical repertoire then can include different registers (such as “high” or “low” notes). But the sonic representation of difference in the Divan repertoire lie not in the timbral differences of instruments, but in the texture of the music, namely that of polyphony. Laura Robson observes that Said throughout his life uses “Western classical music as a space on which he could inscribe and celebrate the political and cultural values of his mobile, cosmopolitan upbringing in interwar Cairo.”126 Polyphony and counterpoint is one of the main aspects of the eurogenic classical repertoire from which Said draws his social ethics. While polyphony is not a uniquely “western” conception, Said cites counterpoint as an element of western music that he missed when he first listened to the Arabic music of Umm Kalthoum: Above all what I missed, I realize now, was counterpoint. It is very monophonic music… So I very early on rejected it and began to focus exclusively on Western music, for which I hungered more and more.127

126 Laura Robson, “A Civilizing Mission? Music and the Cosmopolitanism in Edward Said,” Mashriq & ​ Mahjar 1, no. 1 (2014), 107-129: 108. ​ 127 Said, E, “Interview by Michaël Zeeman,” Leven en Werken, VPRO: Amsterdam, TV Show. This interview was accessed through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676fB7ExZys.

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Indeed, Said expressed his bias by describing the vast collection of classical music records that he listened to growing up, while only listening to Arabic music very rarely.128 In fact, Said has often been criticized for his preference for eurogenic music over Arabic music, given his writings on postcolonialism.129 But Robson identifies Said’s preference as “a nostalgia for a specific local cosmopolitanism of the elite urbanites of interwar Cairo and Jerusalem,”130 places ​ ​ where he grew up and has expressed a fondness for.131 Polyphony is defined by Rokus de Groot as the simultaneous unfolding of two or more different voices, each with its own identity, and at the same time each with a 'responsibility' to the other and for the ensemble of voices. In polyphony there is typically no domination of one voice over others; if it does occur, it is usually temporary, and the role of prominence will change from one voice to another.132 From the description above, one can already note the similar aspects between polyphony and cosmopolitanism, especially regarding the simultaneous existence of differences. The “responsibility” in polyphony to individual others and to the whole as a community, is reminiscent of the role of the cosmopolitan as an “inhabitant of the world,” in which one has a simultaneous responsibility not only to the whole word community but to others as individuals as well. Rokus de Groot further elaborates this relationship in polyphony with two more concepts derived from it: “counterpoint,” or the “differentiation between simultaneous voices,” and “harmony,” described as the “mutual attuning” of the voices. In polyphony, the responsibility of voices can be categorized as a “contrapuntal responsibility” to other individual voices, while also

128 Said: “We didn’t have any records at home—Arabic records—we had lots of Western records; very haphazard collection. Lots of Beethoven, lots of Mozart, little bit of Bach, very little Wagner, little bit of Richard Strauss; I learnt all that at home—Rossini, I loved Rossini at a very early age. That was more coherent, and that was something that I was studying as a pianist”; “Interview by Zeeman,” 10:33. 129 In fact, according to Wouter Capitain, Said demonstrated a clear bias for eurogenic classical music, especially over popular music: “Said did indeed occasionally listen to, read about, and discuss popular music, and that these reflections on popular music can be interpreted as an alternative voice within his more elaborate writings on classical music. In Said’s treatment of music, however, popular forms are markedly inferior to those of the hegemonic European classical canon. Moreover, in Said’s work, not only is the voice of popular music in Said’s work usually silent, but when it does become audible, it creates a powerful dissonance with other, particularly postcolonial themes in his writing,” Wouter Capitain, “Edward Said on Popular Music, Popular Music and Society,” 57. 130 Robson, 108. 131 Barenboim and Said, 5. 132 Rokus de Groot, “Perspectives of Polyphony in Edward Said's Writings,” Alif: Journal of Comparative ​ Poetics, no. 25 (2005): 221. ​

39 maintaining a “harmonic responsibility” to the collective ensemble of voices, making sure there is “mutual attuning.”133 The contrapuntal responsibility preserves individuality and differences, a dedication to plurality, while the harmonic responsibility maintains the unity between the voices. Thus by performing music with polyphony, the Divan can be understood to be performing a sonic form of cosmopolitan dedication to plurality and unity. Furthermore, the voices in polyphony do not exist “indifferently,” but their coexistence as described by de Groot transform and define each other, all the while preserving their differences. 134 This is not unlike the dialogic interactions between individuals that can lead to transformation of the self and self-understanding. And so this interaction with the other does not seek to dominate the other, thus does not lead to a transformation of the other to be subsumed into one voice, but a reflective and dialogic transformation of the self in encountering and negotiating with the other. Thus, the voices are neither fully independent, but neither are they the same. They exist in a state of tension that requires a constant negotiation between the individual and the collective, but they are not indifferent to each other. Barenboim’s sentiment that “the destinies of the Israeli and Palestinian people are inextricably linked”135 then can be put into perspective that they are in “counterpoint” with each other. Thus, the performance of counterpoint and polyphony by members of the Divan arguably adds another layer to their performance of cosmopolitanism, one that demonstrates their “contrapuntal” relationship with each other. For Robson, counterpoint represents for Said “a promising political analogy in its capacity to suggest coexistence without coercion.”136 For de Groot, counterpoint and polyphony as the egalitarian existence of different voices models what Said identifies as necessary in a society: But for intellectuals, artists, and free citizens, there must always be room for dissent, for alternative views, for ways and possibilities to challenge the tyranny of the majority and, at the same time and most importantly, to advance human enlightenment and liberty.137

133 de Groot, 223. 134 Ibid., 222-3. ​ ​ 135 “Dual Citizenship,” Daniel Barenboim, accessed 18 August 2018, ​ ​ https://danielbarenboim.com/dual-citizenship/. 136 Robson, 115. 137 Barenboim and Said, 181.

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Polyphony and counterpoint is defined by the existence of multiple and “alternative” voices, thus it necessarily makes room for alternative voices. Because of this, de Groot notes that polyphony is a prime homology a society without hegemony: Polyphony, with its contrapuntal and harmonic processes, often constitutes such a complex texture, that it eludes cognitive grip, and can be listened to many times, without the sonorous processes being cognitively exhausted. The voices have, so to speak, a mutually elaborative effect on each other. If any musical texture had to be chosen as the epitome of defying a single authoritative listening, polyphony would be a convincing candidate.138

By performing a repertoire of music that is considered to be rife with polyphony and counterpoint, the Divan are performing a sonic cosmopolitanism in which multiplicity and unity exists simultaneously. The various voices are perceived to be coexisting without one dominating another. However, Beckles Willson points out how this aspect of counterpoint has been criticized: Romantic symphonic repertoire of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra may be incommensurate with such ‘counterpoint’ because it drives towards synthetic resolution… Moreover, proposals about coexistence that draw primarily on aesthetic theory leave the practicalities of music in conflict unaddressed.139 Barenboim portrays a deep affinity for the music of Beethoven in particular, claiming that “Beethoven’s music is universal… Everywhere in the world – it speaks to all people.”140 But in addition to his belief in Beethoven’s universalism, Barenboim also chooses to perform his repertoire (along with other eurogenic classical repertoire) because it provides a “neutral” ground for the Israeli and Palestinians. This was demonstrated in the following question and response in the fourth BBC Reith Lectures given by Barenboim: Ari Shavit: I don't see any way one can contest the idea of an orchestra of the others learning to play together and to be in dialogue one with another. But what I would like to question is the metaphor there. You have come with the BBC team to the land of tragedy, the tragedy being that there are two people here who have lost their own music. Don't you think that in order to move forward, in order to have a civilised peaceful life here, each people needs a time with his own music? Don't you think that if you try to put two peoples into one position where they are challenged with the music of the other in an intimate situation, that endangers the very project that you want to advance?

138 de Groot, 229-30. 139 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 320. 140 “Beethoven for All,” Daniel Barenboim, accessed 15 August 2018, ​ ​ https://danielbarenboim.com/beethoven-for-all/.

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Barenboim: I think it's a very legitimate question, although based, if I may say so, on an erroneous understanding of the problem. This is not Israeli music versus Arab music, we're not talking here about Jewish music, we're not talking about Klezmer music against the music of Beirut. Beethoven was German, yes, but he was much more than that, he was everything. This is something that we all draw from. It is not the privilege of the Israelis to say we are classical musicians, and therefore they are not forcing the Palestinians to accept something of their own.141

According to Barenboim, because neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians can claim eurogenic classical repertoire as their own, the repertoire, and in particular, the music of Beethoven, becomes a neutral “universal” medium in which both side is supposed to have in common (through their “shared passion for music”), and thus neither side can claim to subject the other side to their narrative. Thus, to Barenboim (and Said), in the Divan “the universal metaphysical language of music becomes the link, it is the language of the continuous dialogue that these young people have with each other. Music is the common framework, their abstract language of harmony.”142 But what is not specified by Barenboim is that by “the universal metaphysical language of music” he really meant that of the Austro-Germanic repertoire. Referencing Taruskin, Solveig Riiser claims that “History also shows how German music in the 19th century metamorphosed into German universalism, and hence is an ideology part of a nationalist, romantic programme.”143 Much of musicological research have argued against the myth that music is a “universal language.” Given these facts, it is a bit ironic that Barenboim chose to concentrate on the Austro-Germanic classical repertoire, showing not only traces of German universalist influences, but that its association with nationalist ideology seems to contradict the cosmopolitan ideals that he and Said sets forth. This privileging of eurogenic classical repertoire as universal is predictably problematic in its role as a “neutral” third-party. In terms of repertoire in the Divan, the role of the classical repertoire as a “third party” almost seems like a diversion from the mission for “listening to the other’s narrative.” The question posed by Ari Shavit about putting “two peoples into one position where they are challenged with the music of the other in an intimate situation” would seem to be the very challenge of cosmopolitanism that Barenboim and Said are aiming to do in the Divan. In

141 Daniel Barenboim, “Meeting in Music,” in BBC Reith Lectures 2006: In the Beginning was Sound, ​ ​ BBC, Jerusalem. Transcript. 142 Ibid. 143 Riiser, 22.

42 fact, one could argue that this is what the Silkroad aims to do as well. The inclusion of eurogenic classical repertoire can be understood as sidestepping the issue of the confrontation between the musics of the Israeli people and Palestinian people. This is suggested by Beckles Willson especially in two articles. She observes what she deems to be the “parallax” worlds of the Divan and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She uses Slavoj Žižek’s term to describe the relationship between the two entities as connected but never touching, like the two sides of a mobius strip.144 In addition to the questioning of the efficacy of the Divan ensemble in affecting the conflict, Beckles Willson also spotlights the question of how music can have a social impact, especially if its role is to transport the musicians into a “different realm entirely from their worldly existence.” 145 Is this realm too separate then, in that it cannot touch the affairs of everyday life, and therefore the conflict? This is also suggested in Beckles Willson’s view of the Divan as “utopian entertainment,” offering the musicians and those listening a means to “escape from certain types of suffering.”146 On the other hand, the role of the eurogenic classical repertoire as a third-party is important as a way to bring two groups together to address one of the most urgent problem according to Barenboim: And what I wish, I wish for a much greater percentage of Israelis to really concentrate and understand this part of Palestinian history. That's what I said earlier, that until Israelis accept the legitimacy of the Palestinian narration, nothing will move, not only in the way that you Palestinians want but in a way that is humanly just.147

Due to what Barenboim perceives as the Israelis’ constant refusal to acknowledge the narrative of Palestinians, the interaction between the “musics” of the two would not work. Instead, just as Mariam Said compared the Spanish musicians’ presence as a “neutral” party in the Divan, so too is the eurogenic classical repertoire, as also noted by Beckles Willson.148 It becomes, as Mariam

144 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 340. 145 Rachel Beckles Willson, “Whose Utopia? Perspectives on the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra,” Music & ​ Politics 3, no. 2 (2009): 19; Or for Said, this happens in Beethoven’s late works, “when music really moves out of ​ the world of everyday exertion, of effort, of human solidarity and struggle, into a new realm…,” Parallel and ​ Paradoxes, 141. ​ 146 Beckles Willson, “Utopia,” 1. 147 Barenboim, “Meeting in Music” 148 Recall the quote about the Spanish players: “In advance of attending the workshop I asked Said's widow Mariam how they fitted in, and in her response she gave them a role linked to orchestral bonding: project, she said, because 'they represent Europe', and thus 'provide the glue.’ This would suggest that their function (rather like that

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Said said, the “glue,” or as Barenboim puts it, the “common passion for music” that holds them together when it in part it is their refusal to accept the different narratives that divides. Music as a third-party then seems like a necessary step to create the possibility of listening to the other’s narrative by first bringing them together. Robson argues that Said’s claims that eurogenic classical music were universal and comprised of a separate sphere were in part his way to justify his own upbringing and background with his love for that repertoire of music: Said’s defense of Western classical music as an autonomous space unbounded by social or cultural context thus stood, in part, as a claim for the universality of his multi-national, multi-religious, highly mobile social sphere, in contrast with what he (and many others) saw as a provincial, intellectually limited, and autodidactic post-war political culture in the Middle East… he was subtly arguing that his own devotion to Western classical forms represented a universal aesthetic rather than a taste bounded by class, time, and place.149 Robson also argues that this is one of the main reasons why Said and Barenboim created the Divan, which was “to make the case to the West that “universal high culture” in the Middle East was not the province of Israel alone.”150 They wanted to break the stereotypes of the Middle East as “intellectually limited,” showing that eurogenic classical music is not the purview of the “West.” It is Barenboim and Said’s way to legitimize the participation of “non-Western” identities in classical music, showing that not only is the repertoire of Beethoven universal, but that one does not have to be from the “West” to truly be able to appreciate it and play it well. Thus, when the Divan performs Beethoven, they are challenging the stereotypes of the Middle East as “intellectually limited” and the assumed autonomy of eurogenic classical repertoire as being limited to the West. Thus, the Divan as a Middle Eastern orchestra is performing a cosmopolitanism by performing a fluidity in culture and cultural identity, which were markers of Said and Barenboim’s upbringing. It can also be argued that the universalism of Beethoven is not so much in the repertoire itself, but in its appeal to the cosmopolitan belief in the universal rationality of humankind to make sense and find value in Beethoven. This element of music is noted and valued by Said:

of European music in this context is to provide a neutral space in which the Arab and Israeli groups might interact productively”; Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 331. 149 Robson, 113-4. 150 Ibid., 108.

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In short, the transgressive element in music is its nomadic ability to attach itself to, and become part of, social formations, to vary its articulations and rhetoric depending on the occasion as well as the audience, plus the power and the gender situation in which it takes place.151

In other words, the “transgressive element” in music is in its “performative” aspects, and thus in its ability to perform values of cosmopolitanism. The universalism is in the ability of listeners to draw meaning and value in the music of Beethoven, regardless of their background. The ensemble as representing the collective unification of differences and others is important in the Silkroad’s and Divan’s performance of cosmopolitanism. Hence, the type of ensemble is significant in what it can say about the nature of the interaction between the ensemble members. The Silkroad as a “non-traditional” ensemble in the eurogenic classical realm, can be described as “eclectic,” and thus being so can challenge the notion of stereotypical roles of instruments such as the string quartet, or a symphony orchestra. Part of what makes the ensemble of the Silkroad more “non-traditional” is the fact that the musicians all bring with them different traditions and modes of music making. And so by being able to put on successful concerts where they were able to play well together implies successful attempts at learning and negotiating different modes of playing. They also perform the cosmopolitan creation of new modes of communication and world-openness by redefining and creating new relationships between instruments and traditions. Perhaps one of the key differences between the Silkroad and the Divan is the presence of the conductor. In both the observations of Beckles Willson and Riiser, Barenboim has a big impact on the dynamics of the orchestra. As a conductor ando one of the co-founder of the orchestra, he is at the top of the hierarchy. This means that at the end of the day, even if Barenboim attempts to downplay his role/voice in politics, his opinions will hold sway. Additionally, his status as a world-renowned pianist and conductor gives him extra cultural capital and deference, turning him into a force to be reckoned with. On the other hand, Yo-Yo Ma, given his celebrity status as a cellist, is more successful in downplaying this in the group dynamic because the Silkroad functions more as a chamber group, where ideally each member of the ensemble has an equal say/status. This is not to say that Ma does not have an exceptional influence. The smaller ensemble of the Silkroad, the absence of a conductor, and the

151 Edward Said, Musical Elaborations, Columbia University Press: New York (1993): 70. ​ ​

45 sometimes improvisatory nature of the music implies a more egalitarian approach in the process of music making. Whereas the dominating role of Barenboim as a conductor can be understood to be a “coerced synthesis” of the polyphonic voices of the Divan.

Challenging the Western narrative through Cosmopolitanism?

Cosmopolitanism as a reaction to globalization often comprises of an attempt to undermine the idea of Western hegemony and to move away from eurocentrism (cite Delanty). In their performances of cosmopolitanism, the Silkroad and the Divan undermine certain aspects of eurocentrism and stereotypes, challenging the idea of Western autonomy. But in many ways, the cosmopolitanism is still a Western-centered performance, spearheaded by Euro-American actors. While Ma prefers not to give a label to the type of music that is performed by the Silkroad, one of the more prevalent labels give to the various Silkroad albums is the “classical crossover,”152 understood most generally as a genre that includes aspects of eurogenic classical music mixed with “other” musical traditions. As emphasized by the quotations, the “classical crossover” label positions and reduces the instruments and musical styles to the “West” and the “rest.” The Silkroad in all-likeliness is working against such reductive labels, and by working with different musical traditions, with the eurogenic classical one being one of them, also challenges the idea of a fixed eurogenic classical genre of music. Rutherford-Johnson puts into question whether the border containing the eurogenic “Western” art genre can be fully disintegrated: Ensembles like these, and the composers who work with them, challenge the definition of “Western” in Western art music. Yet in many other instances that line remains, and composers from around the world cross it in order to learn, develop, and produce work within unmistakably Western frameworks and idioms. Bright Sheng, discussed in chapter 1, is just one example. Yo-Yo Ma’s father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, is another: he was a violinist and professor of music in Nanjing, China before moving to Paris, where Yo-Yo Ma was born, and then New York. The border between what we might and might not call Western art music may be more porous and mobile than it once was, but it is nevertheless intact.153

152 iTunes, allmusic, etc. 153 Rutherford-Johnson, 93.

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Indeed, Rutherford-Johnson attributes the strength of the border surrounding eurogenic classical music as a genre and other genres to the status and value that eurogenic classical music has achieved, one that makes it valuable as cultural capital. With the hegemonic dominance of eurogenic classical music tradition, it is hard to escape its influence entirely, and to avoid it as a framework or paradigm to mimic or go against. Thus, Rutherford-Johnson observes that The music of the Silk Road Ensemble retains many elements of the “classical” Western ethos. Concerts are still given as formal affairs (the Silk Road Ensemble’s more informal outreach projects notwithstanding), composers are credited, music is learned from scores, the principles of musical literacy (rather than aural transmission) remain, and so on.154 As Rutherford-Johnson shows, it is hard to avoid the heavy role that the eurogenic classical tradition plays the collaborate narrative of the Silkroad. But according to him, this is balanced out by the diversity of the non-Western musicians in the Silkroad, who have cultural capital in terms of “the diversity, cultural legitimacy, and unique knowledge that they bring to the project.”155 Despite the dominance of eurogenic classical aspects in the Silkroad, the diversity of the members on stage can challenge notions of cultural essentialization, as Rutherford-Johnson demonstrates: Is Ma—a Chinese-American playing a European instrument made in eighteenth-century Italy and wearing generic twenty-first-century clothes—allowed to be less essentialized and more culturally malleable than the Silk Road Ensemble’s kamancheh or pipa players (Kayhan Kalhor and Wu Man, respectively), who appear in traditional costumes that signify particular geographically and historically bounded cultures? Or is it they who exercise a more powerful agency because they, by virtue of their outsiderness, bend the Western musicians’ sound toward their own instruments?156

Rutherford-Johnson questioning of the claims of essentialism seems to demonstrate the questions ensembles like the Silkroad asks of representation and difference. This effectively maintains a dialogic tension between multiculturalism and humanism. Likewise, the narrative of the Divan Orchestra is also heavily “West-centered” and eurocentric. This is especially the case because of the universalist claims that Barenboim makes for Beethoven. But alternatively, one can also view it as Said and Barenboim does, which is in a

154 Rutherford-Johnson, 93. 155 Ibid., 92. 156 Ibid.

47 more non-essentialist term that paradoxically feeds into the universalism of eurogenic classical music but also makes it more “culturally malleable.” This is echoed in Barenboim’s words: Very often you hear, “Well, it’s a pity that French orchestras have lost the nasal sound of the French bassoons. This is because they now play German bassoons… What a terrible thing globalization is,” people say. As if you have to be French to produce a nasal sound ​ ​ or German to produce the German sound… There was nothing wrong with the Germans ​ ​ in 1920 feeling that there was something very culturally German about Beethoven and ​ ​ Brahms. I have absolutely no problem with that. I begin to have a problem when they claim that only Aryans can appreciate Beethoven. And I think that this is where we’re heading again… it is possible that each of us has the capacity to be many things.157 The desire to create a premiere Middle Eastern orchestra is part of this desire to counteract the essentialism Barenboim perceives in the eurogenic classical world, namely that Middle Eastern musicians cannot truly understand or “appreciate Beethoven.” In this same way, Barenboim is echoing Rutherford-Johnson’s question: who is allowed to be more “culturally malleable”? But what happens to the culturally “fluid” narrative when Barenboim claims Beethoven to be “universal”? If we take all that Barenboim says to be true, it may seem that he is saying that while we do have the “capacity to be many things,” there are certain things that we should “aspire” towards, such as the music of Beethoven. A comment by a Divan musician as observed by Beckles Willson sheds light on another aspect of this issue: he said that it was strange to be shown how to play a trill in an “authentic” way. He would have preferred to explore how an Arab or Jewish identity might emerge from a trill. In other words, he would have liked to have integrated the backgrounds of the players into the music that is all too often regarded as “European” (or even “universal”), to liberate - we might say - the repertoire from its occupation by a certain performance ethos and practice.158

From this angle, the autonomy of the eurogenic classical repertoire and the often “inflexible” performance practice gives it a hegemonic edge over the repertoire of the Silkroad. In this sense, it almost seems as if the fluidity of the national identities of the musicians do not apply to the eurogenic classical repertoire; or put another way, when the repertoire is given the paradoxical statuses of being both universal and essentialist, it risks coercing the identity of the musicians who perform them in a certain direction. As Beckles Willson puts it, it causes identities to be

157 Barenboim and Said, 11-2. 158 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 334.

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subsumed into the upper hierarchy of a fixed value system (essentially a class value system on which part of an Israeli identity was based.) The absence of Arabic music itself from public events reveals the hierarchy at its most blatant. A symphony workshop where Western classical music occupies a privileged place and has a team of instructors (indeed, ‘collectors’ for the museum) who understand their role precisely as to collect and instruct is at odds with the notion of “unfixed” identity.159

Another perspective or arguably a more cosmopolitan emphasis would be a claim not of the universality of the works of Beethoven or a certain repertoire, but a universalism in the ability of all humans to find value in certain types of music. This was implied by Mark Whale: It is clear, then, that if there is such a thing as music that is universally applicable, its application is not found in the symphony’s representation of the sounds and ideas of Viennese life in the 1820s, but nor is it found in a modification or critical fashioning of those sounds. In both cases, cultural applicability is measured—and limited—in terms of listeners’ abilities to make deeply felt associations between their lives and the musical product, associations that not everyone can make… The legitimacy of the symphony is not recognized on the basis of its immediate fit to all people’s habits, customs, likes, and dislikes, but on the basis of its capacity to invite people to make sense of it, and to choose it for themselves.160 This is reminiscent of Said’s citation of the transgressiveness of music. Universality in Beethoven can be understood more so if we are to view the encounter with his music as an encounter with the other. This is further described by Whale: I have characterized this process as an encounter, not unlike an encounter with another human being. In this sense, I would ask the reader to approach the symphony, not as a product but more as a person, a being whose ability to both enact and work out its own story brings it into focus as something distinct, some- thing which asks us, like the person standing across from us, to listen to it with generosity and understanding. In this regard, musical encounter, like human encounter, crosses cultural boundaries. While I cannot expect my students to be able to associate with the customs and beliefs of students from different cultural backgrounds, I can ask them to meet one another and to try to understand and to empathize with one another.161

Thus, if we are to take the ability and openness of cosmopolitanism to a negotiation with a new or different other, and this other can be in the form of another person or a music, then the ability to negotiate differences in Beethoven’s music is universal.

159 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 334. 160 Mark Whale, “How Universal is Beethoven? Music, Culture, and Democracy,” Philosophy of Music ​ Education Review 23, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 35-6. ​ 161 Ibid., 36.

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Just as Delanty argues that cosmopolitanism is not on the fixed values but the process of defining them, or how Hansen articulates that the universalism in cosmopolitanism is questioning the universal, a cosmopolitan view would not deny that Beethoven can be universal, but for the same reason that all humans are capable of rationality, they can also find other musics and repertoire to be universal. The Divan does not seem to be cosmopolitan in this respect with a large part of the legitimization of the Divan founded on the implied superiority of the eurogenic repertoire (and Beethoven) (implied, as Beckles Willson notes, by omission of Arabic music). Given the considerations listed above, it appears that the Divan has more of a humanist mission than a cosmopolitan one. Whereas the Silkroad, with its inclusion of repertoire from a variety of traditions, seems more cosmopolitan. The label of the repertoire as “classical crossover” can be understood to subvert the “fixed value” of the eurogenic classical music. In comparison then, the repertoire of the Silkroad is more “fluid” than the Divan, perhaps allowing the performers to also “perform” more fluid identities as well. Thus the question of “authenticity” in the performance practice of the Silkroad would be an interesting topic to explore. Are there instances where certain practices are preferable as being “authentic” over another way of playing? Sandoval also notes that Jacques Attali and Christopher Small both view the symphony orchestra as “representing the dominance and hierarchy of post-western industrial societies.”162 This can be due to the presence of a conductor, as well as the dominance of the musical “work,” which will be explored further in how it affects the Divan narrative. In comparison, the Silkroad ensemble differs from the eurogenic classical model that is the Divan, as expressed by Rutherford-Johnson: Yet in many other respects it isn’t “classical” at all. There are many differences in the way that the music is created (with a heavy reliance on arrangements of traditional melodies over original compositions) and performed (with the more vernacular ethos of ​ individual performers working together and expressing themselves as such rather than giving themselves over to the autonomous demands of the composer’s intentions).163 ​ Furthermore, the Silkroad as a “chamber” ensemble without the presence of the conductor, and as employing more improvisatory techniques, interact in a relatively more

162 Sandoval, 84; Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985; Small, C. (2006) Musicking - the meanings of performing and listening. A lecture. Music Education Research, 1 (1), pp. 9. 163 Rutherford-Johnson, 93; emphasis my own.

50 egalitarian way. As Beckles Willson describes, the status of many eurogenic classical repertoire as autonomous means that the musical “text” takes precedence in performance. As such, the the composer’s voice is prioritized, which is embodied in the musical “text,” which is then embodied in the conductor, who is expected to “interpret” said musical text. In the Silkroad, the absence of the conductor and the inclusion of arrangements of traditional melodies which often do not have a designated “composer” might mean that the responsibility of “interpreting” and performing the music would be shared amongst the members of the group. In this sense, the Silkroad might be on a more “equal-footing” than the musicians in the Divan. Hansen writes of cosmopolitanism that: Cosmopolitanism points to the space between the known and the strange, the particular and the universal, the near and the far, that is constantly opened up by the contacts of life. It does not mean “transcending” the everyday for some “higher” realm of experience. In paradoxical terms, it is more a matter of ascending downward: of coming to penetrate or pay attention to local traditions more fully precisely by seeing them in juxtaposition with other traditions.164

From this quote, it seems then that perhaps the Silkroad might be more of a cosmopolitan-minded project than the Divan, especially if we are to look at the eurogenic classical repertoire as a separate sphere that can potentially transcend the everyday. But if we are just to look at the repertoire as yet another cultural tradition that grew out of a long history of local specificities, then it can be seen as another local tradition, or perhaps a series of “local traditions” within the broad genre of the eurogenic classical repertoire, with which to juxtapose with other traditions. The Silkroad actively does this with its “classical crossover” repertoire, while the Divan was built on the assumed superiority of the eurogenic classical repertoire.

164 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 159.

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Chapter 3: Cosmopolitanism as a Strategic Resource

Many scholars, researchers and critics have cast doubt on the power of music to affect social transformation and impact political conflict. However, projects like the Silkroad and Divan have remained active for many years with their ideological goals foregrounded and publicized. However, as Beckles Willson observes, “the utopian vision remains prominent in the public ​ domain… because it is sustained by not one, but a range of agendas (even utopias).”165 As Jeffrey and McFarlane note, the performance of cosmopolitanism is used as a strategic resource by different people to further different agendas; these agendas can include expanding opportunities, or consolidating power for personal and political purposes. This chapter will observe some of the agendas that the Silkroad and the Divan further through their performances of cosmopolitanism. This goes to show that music can be used to further ideological goals, which in turn can be used to achieve certain agendas. Neither music nor cosmopolitanism is purely neutral or inherently good or bad. Performances of cosmopolitanism are crucial to diplomacy because of the portrayal of an openness to difference and a willingness to negotiate and mediate. This has made both the Silkroad and the Divan as prime sources for political/cultural diplomacy.

The role that the Silkroad Ensemble has played in US cultural diplomatic efforts is most apparent in the 2002 Smithsonian Folklife Festival titled, The Silk Road: Connecting Cultures, ​ Creating Trust. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is an annual festival established in 1967 by the ​ Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.166 In 2002, the focus of the festival was on the “ exchange of ideas, goods, and technologies” considered to be “at the heart of the Silk Road.”167 This theme was jointly proposed by Yo-Yo Ma and Theodore Levin, a scholar of Central Asian music scholar. According to Langenkamp, it could not have come at a better time in lieu of the events of September 11. For Ma, it strengthened his personal belief in the mission of the Silk Road project to overcome a fear or mistrust of the other, or by finding commonality and building trust. For the US government, it was a prime opportunity to boost the “soft power”

165 Beckles Willson, “Utopia,” 10. 166 “Festival 101,” Smithsonian Folklife Festival, accessed 10 June 2018, https://festival.si.edu/. ​ ​ 167 “The Silk Road,” Smithsonian Folklife Festival, accessed 10 June 2018, https://festival.si.edu/2002/the-silk-road/smithsonian.

52 of cultural diplomacy after declaring a “war on terror.” Thus, it is no surprise that for the festival, the Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) allocated $75,000 to make sure that the Silk Road Folklife Festival included Afghan musicians and artists understood to have been threatened by the Taliban.168 According to Langenkamp, the generous support from the State Department toward the participation of artists and artisans from Muslim countries (Afghanistan in particular) was intended to demonstrate America’s commitment to protecting the heritage of moderate Muslims against threats from their fundamentalist counterparts.169 As a group of collaborative musicians from different countries (many of which are in the Middle-East), the Silkroad Ensemble was a vital portrayal not only of the US’s public commitment to the culture of countries, but also cultural exchange, and a willingness (and ability) to collaborate cross/interculturally. Furthermore, the multicultural aspect of the Silkroad provided an interest in “preserving” the cultured diversity, which included the cultures of the countries where the U.S. was militarily involved. The importance of such an event to the US cultural diplomatic efforts is evidenced not only by the heavy funding, but also the prestige of the Smithsonian Institute and the presence and opening words of the then secretary-of-state, Colin Powell at the festival: “Once again the nations of Central Asia are joining the nations at either end… on a path to a better future to all.”170 Langenkamp observes the irony that “Had it not been for the timing at which this living exhibition took place, these words would have had a rather hollow ring.”171 Instead, in the context of the festival, the words refer to the alliance made with many of the countries represented at the festival with whom the US had made to fight the “war on terror”172—a diplomatic effort in which the Silk Road Folklife Festival, and the Silkroad Ensemble, as a cosmopolitan ensemble, played a strategic part in. In her article “Whose Utopia?,” Beckles Willson identifies several “utopian” agendas that the Divan orchestra serves. The first agenda she lists is the “Andalusian Utopia.” As an autonomous community within Spain, one of the main historical moments that feed into

168 Langenkamp, “Global Harmony,” 92. 169 Langenkamp, “Contested Imaginaries,” 255. ​ 170 Colin Powell, “Remarks at the Opening of the Silk Road Festival,”26 June 2002, Congressional Record, ​ 107th Congress—Senate (17th July 2002), S6942, quoted in Langenkamp, “Global Harmony,” 91. 171 Langenkamp, “Global Harmony,” 91. 172 Langenkamp, “Contested Imaginaries,” 254.

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Andalusian nationalist pride, or Andalucismo, is the period of time between the years of 912 and ​ ​ 1009 in which Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived in peace in that region.173 The Three Cultures Foundation was established in 1999 after the “Kingdom of Morocco and the Junta de Andalucía decided in 1998 to create a forum that, based on the principles of peace, dialogue and tolerance, promoted the meeting between peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean.”174 According to Beckles Willson, the Barenboim-Said Foundation was a “descendant” of that foundation, in which “the model of three-way coexistence is embodied in the diverse but apparently harmonious personnel of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.”175 Thus it makes sense that the Divan was given residency in Seville, as their cosmopolitan mission would only serve to boost the image of Andalusia as culturally diverse, tolerant, and even cosmopolitan, and that musicians with Spanish citizenship can also join the Divan. The nationalist agenda is also present in the main description of the Divan: Three years after it was established, the orchestra was given a home in Seville by the regional Spanish government of Andalusia. The area’s history as a center for sustained coexistence among Muslims, Christians and Jews in Europe continues in the West-Eastern Divan’s rehearsals and discussions.176

This shows how just the cosmopolitan imaginary of the coexistence of Arabs and Israelis and Spaniards in the Divan orchestra serves as a powerful representation of Andalusian nationalism. The second agenda Beckles Willson talks about is the “Palestinian Utopia.” This agenda is one that supports the termination of the Israeli occupation and the formation of the Palestinian state. As Beckles Willson points out, this view expressed by Barenboim is ironically at odds with the collaborative narrative of the Divan: “However, whatever Barenboim says about Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories to the press, his orchestra does not perform withdrawal and separation, but co-existence.”177 Barenboim has used the Divan to speak out against the conflict and criticize the policies of Israel on many occasions despite his insistence that the

173 Beckles Willson, “Utopia,” 11. 174 “Know us,” Tres Culturas Fundación, accessed 16 August 2018, ​ ​ http://tresculturas.org/en/the-foundation/. 175 Beckles Willson, “Utopia,” 11. 176 “Equal in Music,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 14 August 2018, https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/. 177 Beckles Willson, “Utopia,” 14.

54 orchestra is apolitical. Such an instance occurred in 2006 was when both Barenboim and Mariam Said decided to include a declaration in which they stated their position against the Lebanon war in the printed programs for the Divan concert. Barenboim’s and Said’s actions caused divisive responses amongst the members of the Divan, to the point in which some considered withdrawing from the concert. But as Beckles Willson pointed out, none of them withdrew out of consideration for their musical careers.178 This leads us to other considerations of cosmopolitanism as a strategic resource, namely that of expanding opportunities. Participation in ensembles like the Silkroad and the Divan can offer great opportunities for musicians to expand their careers. It can mean not only getting to work with famous musicians like Barenboim and Ma, but it could mean gaining more musical knowledge as well as gathering publicity. In the Divan, Barenboim’s well-connected and established position in the eurogenic classical world meant that working with Barenboim can provide many career connections. Even well-established professional musicians return to the workshops just to be able to work with Barenboim.179 Of special importance are the scholarships awarded through the Barenboim-Said Foundation that allows the musicians to study with teachers in Germany. These scholarships are particularly important because it it allows the musicians to leave the Middle East and to study in Europe or America, the “economically advantaged countries” for a career in the field of eurogenic classical music.180 With Barenboim as part of the scholarship committee,181 it is no wonder that Beckles Willson puts the interactions of the Divan in context by viewing Barenboim as a “gatekeeper” to career advancement outside the Middle East, and his “politically ‘equal-footing’” as a platform for economic and career development rather than ideological dialogue.182 Langenkamp observes that career advancement is likely one of the main reasons for musicians to join the Silkroad Ensemble. Similar to the situation in the Divan, Yo-Yo Ma’s internationally-renowned status gives musicians who work with him access to the international stage. This is important, because unlike the Divan, the majority of the Silkroad musicians are

178 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 343-4. 179 Ibid., 337. 180 Ibid., 338. 181 Riiser, 31. 182 Ibid.

55 already well-established professionals183, where an international career would be the next logical step according to Langenkamp.184 Wu Man (who plays the pipa) attended the Central Conservatory of Beijing and Harvard University, and have performed at the White House and received the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize. Wu Tong, the sheng player and singer, was the “youngest soloist of the China Central Traditional Music and Dance Company,” and also founded his own intercultural ensemble. Furthermore, one of the composers for the Silkroad, Chen Yi, has accumulated many prizes and grants from both China and the US. Thus, according to Langenkamp, the musicians in the Silkroad “belong to the world’s cream of the crop … and know how to best promote themselves or let themselves be promoted.”185 This promotes a view of musicians as individuals with agency, who, with cosmopolitan deliberation, use the performance of cosmopolitanism to negotiate and mediate the tensions of the world to expand their career opportunities. This is apparent in the other ways musicians who participate in the ensembles expand their opportunities. Cosmopolitanism, through its dedication to multiculturalism, can preserve traditions and cultures through ensembles like the Silkroad by bringing more awareness to them. Langenkamp notes that the Silkroad can act as an “amplifier” for the voices of the participating musicians.186 He notes that the “Anglo-American ‘culture industry’ is far less accessible to Asian musicians (and I mean in particular those who come from the Middle East and Central Asia) as for the ‘natives’.” 187As an ensemble that emphasizes “cultural collaboration,” the Silkroad is an apt medium for musicians who want to bring awareness to a certain musical tradition or instrument. One such musician is Gevorg Dabaghyan, a duduk player who often plays with the Silkroad. According to Langenkamp, Dabaghyan’s chief intent is to spread awareness of Armenian music, suggesting that it can potentially be at odds with the aim of “cultural collaboration”: Instead of “plant[ing] the seeds of new artistic and cultural growth,” and “celebrat[ing] living traditions and musical voices throughout the world” in a noble attempt to “advance

183 This can be seen also from the profile pages of these musicians; “Silkroad Artists,” Silkroad Ensemble, ​ ​ accessed 17 August 2018, http://www.silkroad.org/artists/. 184 Langenkamp, "From Monologue to Dialogue,", 129. 185 Ibid., 129-30. 186 Ibid., 126. 187 Ibid.

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cross-cultural understanding,” Dabaghyan is obviously more concerned with mediating Armenian music (and himself) to an international audience, or at least to the Armenian diasporas.188

But such aims are also listed on the website of the Divan, suggesting otherwise. See for example the comment listed in the profile for Dong-Won Kim, who according to the Silkroad website plays the Jang-go, sings, and composes: “By participating in many intercultural projects, he is committed to sharing the profound beauty of traditional Korean culture and music with the world.”189 Kayhan Kalhor has also expressed a similar intent, “My intention is to represent my culture. And the contribution that this very old culture made to human life.”190 This demonstrates that the personal motivations of these musicians to bring awareness to musical traditions is indeed not only supported by the Silkroad, but is part of the Silkroad narrative of “combining different traditions.” Cosmopolitanism can also serve to preserve certain musics by imbuing it with an air of relevance. Because of music’s ability to perform cosmopolitanism, ensembles with such ideological goals such as the Silkroad and the Divan are given a sense of urgency and necessity. The description of the Divan concludes with this sentiment: “The unique model of the West-Eastern Divan is more essential and timely than ever at this crucial moment in the history of the region. Widespread international support from individuals and organizations allows the Divan, and its universal ideals, to exist and progress.”191 The cosmopolitanizing mission of the Divan, and subsequently the Silkroad, makes these ensembles and others like it seem necessary to society, but also ensures enough financial and institutional support to sustain not only the ensembles but the music industry as a whole. Lastly, cosmopolitanism can serve the agenda for expanding opportunities by breaking stereotypes and promoting cultural fluidity. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the Silkroad and the Divan sought to break various stereotypes. While the Silkroad may not be able to fully escape elements of exoticism, it can allow certain players and instruments to move beyond it with enough awareness and exposure so that perhaps they do not seem so exotic anymore, such as

188 Langenkamp, "From Monologue to Dialogue,", 127. 189 “Silkroad Artists,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 17 August 2018, ​ ​ http://www.silkroad.org/artists/dong-won-kim. 190 The Music of Strangers, 1:12:13. ​ ​ 191 “Equal in Music,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 18 August 2018, ​ ​ https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/.

57 with Wu Man. This can also be done through the employment of new music where certain “cultural” instruments can play music that lie outside the conceived “cultural traditions,” emphasizing fluidity of both culture and cultural identity. In the Divan, playing the Austro-Germanic repertoire that is often considered a part of “high culture” can challenge the Orientalist view that, according to Beckles Willson “romanticizes the players variously with notions of primitiveness, violence, and passion.”192 However, it has been pointed out by both Riiser and Beckles Willson that participation in the Divan as a way to challenge such stereotypes becomes a form of eurocentric-mimesis, in which the Divan musicians “desire to save themselves from Orientalist stereotypes, but on the other, from economic disadvantage”193 leads them to the economically-advantageous Europe.

192 Beckles Willson, “Utopia,” 17. 193 Ibid. ​

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Cosmopolitanism as an Elitist and Eurocentric Agenda?

Cosmopolitanism as an ideology has been used in different ways to further many different agendas. Cosmopolitanism then, like music, can be said to be neither inherently good nor bad. Delanty points out that cosmopolitanism as an attitude seeks to challenge western hegemony and issues of power. Yet, examples from the Silkroad and the Divan show ample examples of elitism and cosmopolitanism. The Silk Road imaginary can be a marketing tool for the Silkroad Ensemble for an elitist audience. The Silk Road imagery not only speaks to the ​ ideological impetus behind the Silkroad Ensemble, but also serves as a marketing image for the group. After performing a Google search on “Silk Road” in 2007, Harm Langenkamp came across a myriad of enterprises using the Silk Road imagery. These range from companies marketing products (tea and furniture), services (software services involving communication, networking and transportation services), cultural experiences (including restaurants, touring, and performances), to a proliferation of educational projects post-9/11 aiming at intercultural exchange. Langenkamp concludes that the general audience of the Silk Road imagery are those within the Bourdieuian class of the “dominated dominant,” or those who are “richer in cultural capital than in economic capital.”194 The Silk Road imagery, much like the concept of world music, is most often appealing to those who are well-educated and have a certain privilege—a privilege that allows a person to be comfortable enough in terms of livelihood to consider the possibility of having enough resources to care for others across the world. In other words, perhaps a cosmopolitan sensibility is a privilege that is often afforded by those who have acquired a certain a certain education level (cultural capital) or financial capital, making the conditions of cultivating cosmopolitan sensibility possible. While cosmopolitanism is not elitist based on ideology alone, the often elite or privileged conditions that can give rise to a cosmopolitan orientation (such as being well-traveled, or being privy to meetings with people from different cultures, like an international competition or conference). While it is out of the scope of this study to verify, it can be speculated that many of those who listen to and attend performances of the Silkroad Ensemble are of same “dominated dominant” class identified by Langenkamp, who are varyingly drawn to

194 Langenkamp, "From Monologue to Dialogue,", 148-9.

59 the music and ideology of the Silk Road. Those who often attend orchestra concerts, such as those of the Divan, can also be considered to be more often than not of the middle to elite class. The elitism and eurocentrism might perhaps play an important role in disseminating cosmopolitanism, as they provide both influential and effective resources to do so. There is no denying that the success of both of the ensembles owe a lot to the star powers of their respective founders and the funding that they received. In fact, Robson believes that the Divan is a strategy for an elitist cosmopolitanism rather than the ethical and moral cosmopolitanism defined in this thesis, in which participants become a part of: Furthermore, through their travel and performance arrangements for the players, the orchestra’s founders repeatedly overruled the state-level political decisions that would normally have circumscribed the movements of the Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian musicians. Their political actions cemented the orchestra to its diasporic context and reflected the wealth, prestige, and power of the orchestra’s founders, who found the resources to override governments in the service of their own musical and political visions. The players received an unparalleled professional opportunity in exchange for a willingness to represent Said’s and Barenboim’s transnational cosmopolitan vision in the public sphere.195

And so despite the ideological impetus behind cosmopolitanism in these musical ensembles, we have to consider the possibility of an inherent elitist and/or eurocentric agenda to the Silkroad and the Divan. Are specific social classes targeted? If so, perhaps cosmopolitan projects specifically target the middle class because they are the ones who potentially can have the most effect in influencing policies through their cultural capital and their potential for upwards social mobility. After all, this was part of the privilege that enabled Ma, Said and Barenboim to found the ensembles and motivated some of the musicians to join the ensembles. As Chapter 2 has shown, the cosmopolitan narrative of both the Silkroad and the Divan are very much centered around a Western narrative, despite attempts to move away from it. Delanty notes that the first step towards moving cosmopolitanism away from the “vestiges of eurocentrism” is to obtain a more “intercultural understanding of cosmopolitanism.”196 Such a task is worth future consideration. Despite attempts to disavow cosmopolitanism from its ​

195 Robson, 117. 196 Delanty, “Not all is Lost in Translation,” 376.

60 baggage, it is still very much steeped in elitism and eurocentrism. But as Collins and Gooley point out: For in practice the identification and interpretation of such cosmopolitanisms has been mainly the work of an intellectual class of scholars and critics. Cosmopolitanism, in other words, may be inescapably elite in some respects, and it might be more productive to acknowledge this than to skirt around it rhetorically.197

As long as cosmopolitanism is still discussed within “Western thought” from a space of privilege, following Collins and Gooley’s example, it might be best to acknowledge the elitism and the eurocentrism.

197 Collins and Gooley, 146.

61

Conclusion

Through the examples of the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, we were able to examine some of the ways in which these musical ensembles performed cosmopolitanism. Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said could be understood as individuals who, through cosmopolitan agency and creativity, founded the ensembles in part to provide a space where a dialogic negotiation of difference can occur through the encounter with the other through music. The ensembles sought to enact social transformation through the reflective self-transformation that can occur through the dialogic interaction of its members. As publicized ensembles that aimed towards social transformation, the Silkroad and the Divan could be understood as performing the ideology of cosmopolitanism through their performance of music. The Silkroad repertoire could be understood sonically as a mix of different traditions, and as such, it could sonically address certain musical stereotypes, and challenge cultural essentialism in both music and in cultural identities. As for the Divan, its repertoire of Austro-Germanic music was privileged as being universal, and potentially as belonging to a separate metaphysical realm. While participation in this “elite” repertoire of music allowed the participating Middle Eastern students to escape an Orientalist purview, it also was done through a eurocentric mimesis. In fact, it seems as though both ensemble, despite being cosmopolitan ensembles that seek to break through certain eurocentric stereotypes, are still very eurocentric and Western in many respects. The Silkroad and the Divan as cosmopolitan musical had much to offer in terms of cultural diplomacy; the Silkroad as part of the US cultural diplomacy and the Divan as part of the Andalusian nationalism. Furthermore, Barenboim often used the Divan as a political platform in which to criticize Israeli policies despite claiming that the ensemble is not political. The ensembles also had much to offer the musicians who participated by expanding personal opportunities for career advancement. But perhaps inherent in cosmopolitanism is an elitist and eurocentric agenda still, one that the Silkroad and the Divan may be a part of. From this thesis, one can conclude that music has much to offer cosmopolitanism, especially by way of a musical ensemble. Through the ensemble members, the repertoire, the

62 name, and the ensemble itself, cosmopolitanism can be performed variously and in many ways. This view of the musical ensembles as performing cosmopolitanism show just another way of how music has been used to further different agendas, and cosmopolitanism itself is also used to further various agendas, despite it being an ethical standpoint.

63

Addendum

A personal example of [intermusicality] in which a piece of music resonated with me strongly is the work, “Going Home” from the album Sing Me Home (2016). The key element of ​ ​ the music that really struck me was the combination of several elements that each held specific signification for me: the familiar tune of second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony (No. 7 or No. 9), the lyrics to sung in both Mandarin and English, and the message of “home.” The famous and familiar tune of Dvorak’s New World Symphony represents not only an element from the eurogenic classical tradition, but also is a symbol of America, for this was composed in the late 19th century, when Dvorak was in the “New World.” Furthermore, the melody was supposedly inspired by African-American spirituals that Dvorak heard while he was there, which could be interpreted as Dvorak’s own way of incorporating an encounter with something new into something known. The inflections and sound of Mandarin resonates with my connection with my Chinese heritage. Although I grew up learning Cantonese, another Chinese dialect, I would often be exposed to Mandarin, and Mandarin that is sung imbues a heavy sense of nostalgia back to when I was a kid riding in the car, listening to the songs that my parents would always put on. While classical music and my Chinese heritage are both a part of my life, I have largely considered them to be disparate elements, neither really quite intersecting. The simple combination of both of these elements, all under the lyrics of “Going Home” sung in both Mandarin and English, invokes a new sense of “home” that is perhaps difficult to articulate precisely. The unification of these supposedly disparate elements in my life into an aesthetically pleasing piece on one hand feels like it gives a voice to my mixed feelings of belonging in America, but in a way that is also validating. This may be an oversimplification (or may it be so simple?), but perhaps the mixing of two “traditions” into something “new” resonates with me not because I perceive it as something new, exciting, exotic or innovative, but that it is a validation with my own binary sense of cultural belonging unified into a cosmopolitan identity. This is a very personal and individualized response and perception to this piece of music, with my own associations and definitions made from the sonic phenomenon of the music. For me, it

64 provided a new sense of “home” that I could not articulate or have experienced before. As a listener, through recognition of certain sonic elements and my subsequent associations with them, I was able to gain a new sense of my own sense of cosmopolitanism, one that also made me feel different connecting conceptions of home across different temporalities as well, including to the idea of a 19th-century America, in particular New York, to my childhood home, the present, and perhaps what a future home might entail. It is a feeling that could not be invoked nor fully articulated through words.

65

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