Musical Mediators, Contact Zones, and Networks during the Cold War

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Increasingly, research on artistic and cultural interactions during the Cold War reveals that the composition, performance, teaching, and reception of music tended not to respect geopolitical, regional, or national divisions. Despite administrative boundaries, bureaucratic obstacles, and ideological antagonism, the artworks, the musicians, and the educators found ways to cross back and forth through permeable borders – and have meaningful, long-lasting, and unpredictable impact. The prism of transnational history allows us to discover that, beneath the level of contentious diplomatic relations, the realm of cultural exchanges followed its own logic and thrived. Taking advantage of the rare forms of mobility and scarce funding, the cultural mediators of the détente period facilitated the circulation of ideas through internal and external contact zones. Nana Sharikadze’s presentation on Georgian composers, Natela Svanidze and Micheil Shugliashvili, shows how artists from the Soviet periphery were able to challenge hierarchies of cultural influence and to transform the avant-garde musical landscape within the Soviet Union. In his talk, Simo Mikkonen examines how Soviet musicians visiting Finland since the 1960s acted as the transmitters and promoters of the works of Schnittke, Gubaidulina, and Pärt towards the West. Focusing on the interactions between Hungarian and American teachers, Szabolcs László explores the transfer of the Kodály-method of music education from Hungary to schools in the US. Emphasizing the importance of informal and formal networks, and the crucial role of international musical events, all three presentations suggest that creativity and change often originated from the margins of the Cold War universe.

Sub Unit

• Arts II: Music, Theater, Performance Studies

Chair

• Patrick Zuk, Durham U (UK)

Papers

• Musical 'Contact Zones': A Perspective from the Soviet Periphery - Nana Sharikadze, Caucasus U (Georgia)

• The Finnish Gateway to the West: Soviet Avant-Garde Composers Music in Finland, 1965-1985 - Simo Mikkonen, U of Eastern Finland (Finland)

• Music Education across the Iron Curtain: The Kodály-Method and the Network of Hungarian and American Teachers, 1960s-1970s - Szabolcs Laszlo, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities (Hungary)

Discussant

• Kiril Tomoff, UC Riverside