’The ethnography of musical performance is so fundamental to contemporary ethnomusicology that it is like the air we breathe. Buchanan’s introduction offers a new window to the genesis of this approach and its broad reach, and then points us to the next steps forward. The articles that follow explore the politics of performance and the power of performativity in relation to history, subjectivity, and specific events through a series of vibrant case studies from across the Americas. Of special interest to Latin Americanists, Americanists, and ethnomusicologists in general, this book both explains and exemplifies why the ethnography of performance has become foundational to the ethnomusicological project.’ Thomas Turino, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA