Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools - cover image

Copyright

Geoffrey Baker

Published On

2021-04-12

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80064-126-6
Hardback978-1-80064-127-3
PDF978-1-80064-128-0
HTML978-1-80064-643-8
XML978-1-80064-131-0
EPUB978-1-80064-129-7
MOBI978-1-80064-130-3

Language

  • English

Print Length

476 pages (xvi+460)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 33 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.3" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 37 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.44" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback1976g (69.70oz)
Hardback2381g (83.99oz)

Media

Illustrations31

Funding

  • Music & Letters Trust

OCLC Number

1247663442

LCCN

2020447279

BIC

  • AVA
  • JHMC
  • AVH

BISAC

  • MUS006000
  • MUS020000
  • MUS007000

Keywords

  • music
  • social action
  • Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín
  • Colombia
  • El Sistema
  • Venezuela
  • music education
  • history
  • society
  • SATM
  • policy-making
  • ethnomusicology

Rethinking Social Action through Music

The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools

How can we better understand the past, present and future of Social Action through Music (SATM)?

This ground-breaking book examines the development of the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín (the Network of Music Schools of Medellín), a network of 27 schools founded in Colombia’s second city in 1996 as a response to its reputation as the most dangerous city on Earth. Inspired by El Sistema, the foundational Venezuelan music education program, the Red is nonetheless markedly different: its history is one of multiple reinventions and a continual search to improve its educational offering and better realise its social goals. Its internal reflections and attempts at transformation shed valuable light on the past, present, and future of SATM.

Endorsements

Following on from his groundbreaking study of Venezuela’s El Sistema, Baker offers a courageous and unsettling exploration of Social Action Through Music, based mainly on a case study of the Red de Escuelas de Música in Medellín, Colombia. It is a profound and lively examination of this important as well as complex issue. Wide-ranging in its analysis, honest, and wise, it is indispensable reading for all those interested in the discussion around the social impact of making music.

Dr Graça Mota

Former chair of the El Sistema Special Interest Group at the International Society for Music Education. Research Centre in Psychology of Music and Music Education, Porto Polytechnic

Reviews

Social action through music is inescapably complex, and Baker successfully unravels critical intricacies with a rare combination of detail and clarity… The inquiry is ruthlessly honest, but not needlessly so: the text is an objective but appropriately appreciative account of the work in Medellín, bolstered by a highly-informed exploration that gives it international relevance…, offering guidance, insight and even inspiration.

Jonathan Govias

"Book review: Rethinking Social Action Through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools". The Strad (0039-2049), 2021.

Full Review

Contents

1. Creating, Redirecting, and Reforming the Red

(pp. 39–98)
  • Geoffrey Baker

2. The Red Pushes Back: Tensions, Debates, and Resistance

(pp. 99–152)
  • Geoffrey Baker

3. The Red through a Social Lens

(pp. 153–208)
  • Geoffrey Baker

4. The New Image of Medellín to the World

(pp. 209–262)
  • Geoffrey Baker

5. Change

(pp. 265–314)
  • Geoffrey Baker

6. Challenges

(pp. 315–350)
  • Geoffrey Baker

7. Possibilities of Transformation

(pp. 351–382)
  • Geoffrey Baker

Afterword

(pp. 383–410)
  • Geoffrey Baker

Introduction

(pp. 1–36)
  • Geoffrey Baker

Contributors