Description
Classical music has been a cultural mainstay in Haiti throughout the nation’s history, and it continues to serve as an enduringly powerful source of community in the present moment. Every summer, foreign volunteers visit Haiti to teach music in the Western art tradition in urban and rural settings. Author Lauren Eldridge Stewart joined them to observe how the actions of volunteers and campers, foreigners and citizens, are shaped by an American news media landscape that routinely provides a limited impression of everyday life in Haiti.
Her findings are collected in Recital: The Uses of Classical Music in Haiti, which offers a fresh framework for understanding the continuous yet evolving currency of the genre worldwide. Eldridge Stewart analyzes ways that Haitians prove classical music to be purposeful and meaningful throughout their individual lives and communities. News coverage of Haiti is frequently derogatory and consumed with deficits and lack. Recital reconsiders that messaging and posits that we all gain by understanding how this system of music education persists and succeeds.
Reviews
"Recital: The Uses of Classical Music in Haiti is an important contribution to the musicological literature about the Caribbean, as well as classical music in general. Drawing upon a wide array of theoretical literature, the author situates classical music in Haiti as a potent signifier of personal identity, social class, and national pride. By moving beyond a consideration of genre in classical music to consider how it is put to use in Haitian summer music camps, Eldridge Stewart brings an ethnomusicological focus to a topic usually explored by historical musicologists."
- Michael Largey, author of Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism