Pedro Rafael Aponte

Bio: Pedro Rafael Aponte is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Music education & Ideology. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 7 citations.

The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, 1920-1960.

Abstract: This dissertation explores the developments of art music in Venezuela during the first half of the twentieth century as an exercise in nation building. It argues that beginning in the early 1920s a nationalist movement in music emerged, which was not only determined by but also determinant in the construction of a concept of nationhood. The movement took place at a crucial time when the country had entered a process of economic transformation. The shift in Venezuela's economic system from agrarian to industrial in the 1910s triggered a reconfiguration of the country's social and cultural structures. Industrialization brought about a new type of culture in which individual loyalties to the nation became more apparent than ever before. The institutionalization of national culture took place not only within the government, through state policies of national integration, but also less formally within social organizations. At both levels, however, the process of institutionalizing national culture involved a great deal of cultural engineering and invention. In art music, these dynamics took the form of a nationalist movement initiated by a group of native musicians in the city of Caracas around 1920. These musicians sought to modernize musical life in the country, which they saw as being old-fashioned in comparison to contemporary European music. In addition to creating a modern music infrastructure they sought to establish a national art-music culture. To that end, they set out to articulate a national ideology of music and to act on several nationalistic objectives: revising the narrative of the country's music history, disseminating historical and ethnomusicological research, creating national policies on music and music education, and composing a nationalist musical repertoire. By looking at those musical developments against the backdrop of social change, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the constructionist nature of musical nationalism in mid-twentieth-century Venezuela. In this light, the renovation movement is to be seen as a nation-building project made possible by constructing and solidifying new modes of cultural communication and new identifying marks of national culture.

Nations and Nationalism

Abstract: Series Editor's Preface. Introduction by John Breuilly. Acknowledgements. 1. Definitions. State and nation. The nation. 2. Culture in Agrarian Society. Power and culture in the agro-literature society. The varieties of agrarian rulers. 3. Industrial Society. The society of perpetual growth. Social genetics. The age of universal high culture. 4. The Transition to an Age of Nationalism. A note on the weakness of nationalism. Wild and garden culture. 5. What is a Nation. The course of true nationalism never did run smooth. 6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society. Obstacles to entropy. Fissures and barriers. A diversity of focus. 7. A Typology of Nationalisms. The varieties of nationalist experience. Diaspora nationalism. 8. The Future of Nationalism. Industrial culture - one or many?. 9. Nationalism and Ideology. Who is for Nuremberg?. One nation, one state. 10. Conclusion. What is not being said. Summary. Select bibliography. Bilbliography of Ernest Gellner's writing: Ian Jarvie. Index

Of Orchestras, Mythos, and the Idealization of Symphonic Practice: The Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela in the (Collateral) History of El Sistema

Abstract: El Sistema defines itself as a “social organism of the Venezuelan State” whose goal is the “collective” instruction of music “through the symphonic orchestra and choir as instruments of social organization and communitarian development.” Historical accounts describe a revolutionary phenomenon whose main achievements since 1975 are the “democratization of music” and the “transformation of society.” These suprahistories understate the pre-1975 musical panorama of the country and the role of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuela as a forerunner of El Sistema. Closer scrutiny of these epic histories and the omitted ties to the legacy of the nationalist school indicates that El Sistema’s story relies on the idealization of symphonic practice as “universal” practice and on Abreu’s hyperidealization of the same as “transformative” tool.

The History and Development of Lagu Seriosa in the Context of Musical Nationalism in Indonesia

Abstract: Lagu seriosa was the most important nationalistic song genre in Indonesia in the 1950s and 1960s, and it became the main attraction of the annual national singing competition, the Bintang Radio (Radio Star). Little academic work has been done to investigate how it developed and why this genre that emulated the European art song, rose to such prominence in Indonesia. The aim of this study is twofold; to distinguish the role of the genre that led to its growth as a nationalistic song in Indonesia, and to investigate the use of folk songs in the music to promote nationalism. Twenty-seven interviews were conducted among the practitioners who played the key role in the development of lagu seriosa from the 1950s. As a genre that promoted national Indonesian identity, it lost its popularity as the rise of popular music infiltrated Indonesia in the 1970s. This thesis will cover the entire period from its rise to the fall of lagu seriosa as the definitive nationalist song in Indonesia. The five case studies of selected songs reflected continuity and change in musical style and over time. The research extends the theory of art as collective action by Howard Saul Becker (1974) where collective action is not only crucial but was treated as a conventional method of composition for the survival of the art world. I propose the term “variants to the conventions” for the collaborative process of the art song. I argue that the success of lagu seriosa was fostered by a group of musicians who functioned as the gatekeepers, referred in this thesis as the “reference group,” a term coined by Karen Cerulo (1984) to describe the consciousness with which artists identify with the experts in their craft. By promoting role models, the reference group cultivated, monitored and devised various mechanisms so that songs conformed to propaganda needs of the Indonesian government. The result is that the classical style of singing propagated by lagu seriosa accommodated the cultivation of patriotic or propaganda songs during the Guided Democracy period (1959- 1965), particularly at the height of the Konfrontasi (1963-1966) period.