Music and Urban Society in Colonial Latin America

Geoffrey Baker is a Senior Lecturer in the music department, Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco (2008) and his essays on music in colonial Peru have appeared in Early Music, the Latin American Music Review, Il Saggiatore Musicale and Revista Andina. His research also encompasses Cuban popular music and music education in Cuba and Venezuela. Tess Knighton is a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and is Editor of the Boydell Press's Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music series. Her research interests focus on music and culture in early modern Spain, Portugal and the New World and she has taught and published widely in these fields. Recent publications include Devotional Music in the Iberian World, 1450–1800, coedited with Alvaro Torrente, which won the 2008 Robert Stevenson Award.

• Preface; 1. The resounding city Geoffrey Baker; 2. Music and ritual in urban spaces: the case of Lima, c.1600 Tess Knighton; 3. A conflicted relationship: music, power and the inquisition in viceregal Mexico City Javier Marín López; 4. Making music, writing myth: urban Guadalupan ritual in eighteenth-century New Spain Drew Edward Davies; 5. 'Gold was music to their ears': conflicting sounds in Santafé (Nuevo Reino de Granada), 1540–90 Egberto Bermúdez; 6. The 'spirit of independence' in the Fiesta de la Naval of Caracas David Coifman; 7. Employment, enfranchisement and liminality: ecclesiastical musicians in early modern Manila David R. M. Irving; 8. Chapelmasters and musical practice in Brazilian cities in the eighteenth century Paulo Castagna and Jaelson Trindade; 9. Music, authority and civilization in Rio de Janeiro (1763–90) Rogério Budasz; 10. Transcending the walls of the churches: the circulation of music and musicians in Santiago de Chile Alejandro Vera; 11. The slave's progress: music as profession in Criollo Buenos Aires Bernardo Illari; 12. Urban music in the wilderness: ideology and power in the Jesuit reducciones, 1609–1767 Leonardo J. Waisman; 13. Enlightened Reformism versus Jesuit Utopia: music in the foundation of El Carmen de Guarayos (Moxos, Bolivia), 1793–1801 María Gembero Ustárroz; Bibliography; Appendices.

"There has been significant scholarship on the musical life of colonial North America but far less about the even richer musical culture of Mexico, and Central and South America. The 13 chapters in this book, written primarily by music historians from Latin America who are fluent and immersed in the language and cultures of their chosen areas of expertise, fill this gap admirably. There are important chapters on Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires, just to name a few, and seven valuable appendices, including one with an “Inventory of music and instruments in San Pedro in Moxos, 1796.” --Early Music America