Dissertation Final Submission Andy Hillhouse
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TOURING AS SOCIAL PRACTICE: TRANSNATIONAL FESTIVALS, PERSONALIZED NETWORKS, AND NEW FOLK MUSIC SENSIBILITIES by Andrew Neil Hillhouse A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Music University of Toronto © Copyright by Andrew Neil Hillhouse (2013) ABSTRACT Touring as Social Practice: Transnational Festivals, Personalized Networks, and New Folk Music Sensibilities Andrew Neil Hillhouse Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Music University of Toronto 2013 The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to an understanding of the changing relationship between collectivist ideals and individualism within dispersed, transnational, and heterogeneous cultural spaces. I focus on musicians working in professional folk music, a field that has strong, historic associations with collectivism. This field consists of folk festivals, music camps, and other venues at which musicians from a range of countries, affiliated with broad labels such as ‘Celtic,’ ‘Nordic,’ ‘bluegrass,’ or ‘fiddle music,’ interact. Various collaborative connections emerge from such encounters, creating socio-musical networks that cross boundaries of genre, region, and nation. These interactions create a social space that has received little attention in ethnomusicology. While there is an emerging body of literature devoted to specific folk festivals in the context of globalization, few studies have examined the relationship between the transnational character of this circuit and the changing sensibilities, music, and social networks of particular musicians who make a living on it. To this end, I examine the career trajectories of three interrelated musicians who have worked in folk music: the late Canadian fiddler Oliver Schroer (1956-2008), the ii Irish flute player Nuala Kennedy, and the Italian organetto player Filippo Gambetta. These musicians are all notable for their taste for transnational collaboration and their reputations as mavericks and boundary-pushers. Through case studies of their projects, relationships, and collaborative networks, I explore transformations in the collectivist folk ideal by focussing on how these musicians are implicated in three phenomena: transnational festivals, new folk music sensibilities, and touring as social practice. This research is based on multi-dimensional, multi-sited fieldwork undertaken in Toronto, Genoa, Edinburgh, and at various festivals in Europe and North America between 2007-2013. I conclude that Schroer, Kennedy, and Gambetta experience transnational folk music space as a field of intersecting transnationalisms that are imaginaries and collectivities of varying size and scope. While festivals in this space increasingly celebrate a transcultural ideal and foster the formation of transnational networks, stable, heterogeneous transnational relationships are proving more difficult to attain. I argue that touring on this circuit generates a desire for community continuity that becomes part of the poetics of new instrumental folk music. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, this dissertation would not have been possible without my family’s encouragement. My mother and father, Elma and Neil Hillhouse, gave me emotional and material support at times when I had doubts and concerns about the enormous and risky undertaking of writing a dissertation. To them I am forever grateful, not just for this project, but for their support throughout my life in music. My beloved partner, Nathalie Thibault, was always understanding, even when I was in a panic about how I was going to manage to answer student emails, prepare a lecture, and finish a dissertation draft before my deadlines. More important, she let me fly off around the world, despite the expense and strain of being apart. I am especially indebted to her for her patience and understanding in August 2010, when I was in Italy at the time she began to experience labour with our son Adam (I made it back in time for the birth). Merci mon amour, je t’aime fort. I am thankful and honoured for the opportunity to have worked closely with Dr. James Kippen, my advisor. As an ethnomusicologist, Professor Kippen’s breadth and depth of knowledge and experience goes without saying to those who have read his work or looked at his CV. For those who have not had the opportunity of working with him, they may not be aware that he is also a very encouraging mentor with a special ability to make the most daunting task seem manageable and acheivable. He set a standard of composure and professionalism that I hope to aspire to in my academic career. I was also extremely lucky to work with the two other gifted ethnomusicologists on my committee, Jeff Packman and Joshua Pilzer. Drs. Packman and Pilzer were very generous with sharing their insights into my projects, and I am highly indebted to them iv for their willingness to answer my questions about thorny theoretical issues, whether over email or over pints at the Duke. Two other University of Toronto professors whom I would also like to acknowledge are Dr. Ken McLeod, my internal examiner, and Dr. Robin Elliott, who stepped in at the last minute when needed as a member of my defense committee. Further, Dr. McLeod offered some helpful feedback on various pieces of my work pertaining to my dissertation research, and Dr. Elliott’s PhD seminar in my first year at U of T was highly valuable in setting me off on the right course. My appreciation also goes to Jeremy Strachan, who came to the rescue with his Sibelius skills. I would also like to heartily thank my U of T ethno colleagues, with a particular ‘shout out’ to the ‘60’s club.’ You are all great folks and the collegiality at U of T has made the whole experience that much more worthwhile. I greatly value my extermal examiner Dr. Timothy Taylor’s critical and insightful response that gives me much to consider as I continue developing this research. In addition, along the way I have received some indespensible advice and input from other scholars beyond the Faculty of Music. Some of these are Dr. Kim Chow-Morris of Ryerson University, Dr. Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin of Concordia University, Dr. David Wilson of the University of Toronto’s Department of Celtic Studies, Dr. Caroline Bithell of the University of Manchester, and Dr. Ulf Hannerz of Stockholm University. Thank you to Linda Bull as well for her assistance in translation. Finally, I owe my deepest gratitude to Nuala Kennedy, Filippo Gambetta, and the late Oliver Schroer. A special aspect of this project was that Oliver, Nuala, and Filippo all were very willing to discuss their own well thought out, sophisticated, and nuanced takes on their experiences of this musical field. Filippo and Nuala, thank you for letting me v crash on your couches, and for showing me around your cities, and for generally making the space for me in your extremely busy lives. Filippo, I greatly appreciate you taking me up to Bobbio, that was an amazing experience. Nuala, I am incredibly honoured to have had the chance to play together, and look forward to more. If Oliver were here I would thank him for his enthusiastic discussions while he was in a physical state that would have led most people to prefer privacy. I will close by taking the opportunity to say what I never said when he was alive, and what I know so many people would concur with: thank you Oliver for the deep well of melodic gems you left us, your humour, your daring, and your creative energy that did not cease, even when forces in your body conspired against it. We are definitely the richer for your time with us. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES xii LIST OF FIGURES xiii CHAPTER 1 – PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES 1 Festival Snapshot: The Lorient Festival Interceltique, August 2010 1 Festivals, Sensibilities, and Touring as Social Practice 5 Oliver Schroer (1956-2008), St. Margaret’s Hospital, Toronto, September 2007 11 Pushing the Boundaries 13 Tradition/Innovation, Transcendence/Immanence 13 Folk music/ Art music 16 Touring and Networks 20 Oliver: A Brief Biographical Introduction 23 Nuala Kennedy and Filippo Gambetta 26 Introducing Filippo Gambetta: A Genoese Organetto Player 29 Introducing Nuala Kennedy: An Irish Flute Player in Edinburgh 34 ‘Folk’, ‘Celtic’, ‘Traditional’ 39 A Note on ‘Vernacular Music’ 44 Scenes, Sensibilities, Lifestyles 46 New Folk Music Sensibilities 51 Place and New Instrumental Folk Musics 53 ‘World Music’ Intersections 59 CHAPTER 2 – COSMOPOLITAN FOLK IN A TRANSNATIONAL FIELD 70 Globalization 71 Non-diasporic Transnationalisms 74 Folk Music and Transnationality 76 vii Tensions in ‘Folk Music’ 78 Transcendence and Immanence 78 Dialectics, Tensions 80 Place, Community, and the ‘Folk Musician’ 83 The Transnational Folk Festival Field 84 Spaces and Fields 86 Flows and Scapes 90 Transcendent Institutions? Transnational Festivals 94 Tropes of Transnational Festivals 94 Ties: individual and institutional 96 Festivals, Tourism, and the Marketing of Place 99 Social Stratification at Festivals 102 Transcendent Individuals? Cosmopolitan Folk Musicians 104 Mobile Cosmopolitans, Flexible Careers 104 Critiques of Cosmopolitanism 107 Reflexivity and Self-making 111 Representing the Self/Narrating the Self 114 Festivals, Individualization, and Pluralism 118 Community: An Open Question 121 CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH METHODS AND TECHNIQUES 123 Mapping Networks: Micro, Meso, Macro 123 A Folk Musician Researching Folk Musicians 126 ‘Backing’ my Collaborators 127 My Story 132 Insider Research: Theoretical