Political Ontologies of Music: Rethinking the Relationship between Music and Politics in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

The research project “Political Ontologies of Music: Rethinking the Relationship between Music and Politics in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries” examines the intersection between the ontological assumptions of fifteen composers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, their political thought and ethical concerns within their compositional practices and musical works. Ontological assumptions are defined here as personal or collective assertions about the nature and means of music, which reveal our values and beliefs on what music is as well as what music can do or accomplish. This research argues that integrating composers’ ontological assumptions in the exploration of their political or ethical commitments makes possible the study of a broader range of composers and their views about, for example, social justice and environmental issues. The first objective of this research is to understand how composers’ ontological assumptions shape the political possibilities of their music within a specific symbolic order; how musical works and practices can invent new ways of making sense of the common world. The second objective is to examine how composers embedded their music in singular processes within ethical concerns, such as human rights and equality, common good and social justice.