<— Learning more about Slave Orchestras around the world than I ever thought, or really wanted, to know. As if forced assimilation of assimilation of oppressed groups through music wasn’t enough...
João Furtado de Mendonça, as early as 1610, "maintained a private orchestra & choir of black slaves, 20- to 30-strong." From pg 134 in Chapter 8 section on Brazilian Slave Orchestras (Peter Fryer's "Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil")
Image from pg 141.
This snippet about slave orchestras in South Africa.
From Chapter 3 of Carol Ann Muller's "South African Music: A Century of Traditions in Transformation, Volume 1," page 65.
From the first chapter ("Colonialism in Indonesia") of Danielle Fosler-Lussier's "Music on the Move" pp. 24-25, describes Augustijn Michiels' slave orchestra in capital of the Dutch colony, Batavia (modern day Jakarta) late early 1800s.
Small slave orchestras in Manila as early as late 1500s in William Summers' "The Jesuits in Manila, 1581-1621: The Role of Music in Rite, Ritual, and Spectacle." Page 661 in Chapter 31 of "The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773" Eds. John W. O’Malley, et al
Muddying the waters a bit now. W. Bobowski (1610-1675) was a slave in the Ottoman Empire. A trained musician, he wrote Ottoman Classical Music and is included in *that* canon (cf. D. Cantemir).
Didn't take me long while learning rep from that part of the world to discover them.
Ambionese musician slaves in Dutch trading compound of Dejima in Nagasaki. Japanese silk scroll from late 18th century (depicts earlier Edo period). Slaves from Ambon, Malaku (Indonesia). An estimated million or more Indonesians & other SE Asians were sold & traded by the Dutch.
List including Indonesian slave orchestra for auction at Jakarta 1833. From Hare's correspondence w/ Dutch authorities.
168-169 "Documents relating to John Clunies Ross, Alexander Hare & the early history of the settlement on the Cocos-Keeline Islands"
Learned about Dédé a few years ago when I discovered New Orleans had opera in the late 1700s. The piece linked below makes me wonder whether Haiti had slave opera companies. At the very least possibly slave pit orchestras for opera.
"The Dutch were reportedly struck by the musical talent of the Javanese musicians in Batavia and their ability to play Western baroque music, and sought to showcase their talents in a public setting. Even if it meant enslaving the musicians."
"Music formed an important part of this cultural transfer, as slaves were expected to sing for the entertainment of their masters, thereby learning European folk songs and music genres in their masters’ homes."
If I were racist,
I’d also ignore that
There were literally
Orchestras of slaves
From the Trans-Atlantic, and
Trans-Pacific slave trade
Playing the ‘Great White Canon’
While Mozart, Haydn,
Beethoven, and Bach
Were alive.
Groot Constantia, a Dutch Wine Estate in South Africa (1685-1885):
"Guests were amazed by Cloete's slave orchestra: "He was customarily awakened each morning with a performance by 15 of his slaves who were good musicians"
Slave bands were also regularly used to entertain whites in the US. Whether slaves were used in orchestras as in other parts of the world I've yet to find, but Pre Civil War orchestras in the US were already relatively rare.
“When oppressors move in and take over a culture—or participate in human trafficking and the assimilation of captives into a foreign land for further exploitation—the oppressed humans survive by adapting to the cultural whims of their oppressors.”
Needed to summarize some of this about slave orchestras.
"What if we started teaching the history of classical music that hasn’t white-washed out slavery and colonialism? How will we discuss how composers and patrons benefited from the slave trade?"
Also must apologize for not linking to Hannah Templeton's "Mozart and the Slave Trade" piece in my post. I've edited and included the link, but here it is for those who were looking or couldn't find it online:
This fascinating obituary of Indonesian violinist, Idris Sardi, highlights the aftermath of colonial legacy of the slave orchestras ecosystem. In a country w/ its own indigenous centuries long large ensemble trad. (Gamelan) this shouldn't be surprising.
Jessica Valiente's dissertation "Siento una Flauta: Improvisational Idiom, Style, and Performance Practice of Charanga Flutists in New York from 1960 to 2000" discusses French Haitian slave orchestras' influence on Cuban Charanga (Chapter 1, pp. 7-22).
Happening concurrently to the existence of European slave orchestras in colonies around the world were serf orchestras in Russia and some parts of Eastern Europe. Snippet from "History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800, Vol. 2" - Nikolai Findeizen
Did I mention there were slave choirs too? from Fryer's "Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil"
Chapter 8, pg. 134.
A few people have brought up the Russian horn orchestra in response to my slave orchestra piece. Here's a snippet from Priscilla R. Roosevelt's "Emerald Thrones and Living Statues: Theater and Theatricality on the Russian Estate" pg. 7
"Wealthy families engaged in the slave trade and used this financial capital to build up cultural capital in the musical culture of the day, hiring musicians, purchasing manuscripts and scores, and musical instruments and funding concerts."
Can we be sure this wasn’t a slave musician? The Dutch did use slave musicians in Indonesia and South Africa as early as the beginning of the 1600s. They regularly “toured” them as well.
Starting to dig into non-English sources. Piece I found in a Brazilian academic database about the Imperial Plantation in Santa Cruz, Rio. One of the documents lists the slaves and instrumentation of the 34 piece chamber orchestra/choir during the 1860s. revista.universo.edu.br/index.php?jour…
When I say "Opera Diversity" I'm talking about <<Diversity OF Opera>> not <<Diversity IN Opera>>. These are two very different ideas and I articulate that a bit in this piece:
One of my other research projects is compiling a list of First Language Operas: a catalogue of the first time languages are used in the libretti of Operas historically. Many examples here will pull from that list.
An 1870 photo of the Slave Band of Antônio Luís de Almeida.
Figure 10, pg. 66 in Luiz Cleber Moreira Freire's 2007 dissertation, "NEM TANTO AO MAR NEM TANTO À TERRA:
Agropecuária, escravidão e riqueza em
Feira de Santana - 1850-1888"
Antônio Luís de Almeida was a Brazilian Coffee Baron in Bananal, São Paulo. The white guy at the top-center of the photo is German conductor, Wiltem Sholtz. Most slave orchestras and ensembles were directed by European conductors.
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In Brazil, slavery didn't end till 1888, so finding actual photographs of slave ensembles in existence shouldn't be surprising.
This group was often called "Banda do Tio Antoniquinho" and as many slave ensembles, would have to perform diverse functions.
3/
Adventures in compiling bibliographies: Arabic #MusicTheory edition. PART III: Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement.
One of the pleasures of working on this bib is coming across other folks' work. For example, the Digital Corpus for Graeco-Arbic Studies! graeco-arabic-studies.org
Western Music Theorists/Historians don't generally have a healthy understanding of the Islamic Golden Age and the translation movement that likely helped preserve a fair number of ancient Greek Music treatises which might not have otherwise survived.
The Greek works, obviously, haven't been the only ones preserved, translated, and commented on in Baghdad and Cordoba. My 1st two threads talked about the Syriac and Hebrew/Judaic overlap. Some translators were ethnically Persian so there's also overlap with Pahlavi works.
Current Diversity initiatives is just a replay of Melting Pot racism ideology. It was an idea that was stewing (pun intended) for some time but really came into general usage in the US after the Israel Zangwill's play by the same name in 1908.
1/
The idea has always been at the back of my mind while writing the Diversity, Inclusive Programming, and Music Education' Series which is one of the reasons I focused on the Third Wave (1880-1920) of immigration as a backdrop for it.
Many of us in the States know the Melting Pot metaphor--that all races & cultures will "melt" and blend into one new and utopic "American" culture. But really, it's a monocultural metaphor for assimilating the new 20 million immigrants coming into the US during that 3rd wave.
3/
The past 16 years or so I've been also playing Jewish music. From about 2009-2013 I played with the River City Klezmer Band organized by Dr. Al Goldin who just passed this past June (at 97).
One of my favorite memories: all these Somali kids just had to dance with our singer! 2/
The past 5 years, been playing in a Sephardic Jewish band led by Cantor Sharon Hordes.
Was asked to record on 2 tracks of "Mi Coraçon Sospira"--her first CD--and to play the CD release. The group stuck & were dubbed "Transito."
Adventures in compiling bibliographies: Arabic Music Theory edition.
Just traveled down a rabbit hole of Syriac Christian Chants and the Beth Gazo (collection of Syriac hymns dating back to Bardaisian 154-222 CE) and I'm reminded how Eurocentric #MusicTheory is as a discipline.
Tala Jarjour, in her "Syriac Chant at the Negotiation of Source and Method in the Two Music–“ologies”," probably sums up a lot of what's running through my head right now.
And Jarjour really hits it on the head here because this could be said of so many of the Christian chant traditions. This applies even to the more well studied ones like the Byzantine and Znamenny, much less Armenian Apostolic, Georgian, Zema, and Coptic traditions.