Name: Music and Sound Studies Colloquium: Marysol Quevedo, “Music of the Hemisphere: the Inter-American Music Festival, Cold War Cultural Diplomacy, and ‘Universal’ Musical Aesthetics”
Start: 2024-10-24T16:30:00
Location: Cornell University Department of Music

Cornell University Department of Music

Abstract: First held in 1958, the Inter-American Music Festival (IAMF, 1958-1986) was organized under the sponsorship of the Organization of American States “to promote closer relations and understanding among the American republics by recognizing and stimulating the development of music of the Americas.” Hosted in Washington, D.C. every two or three years, the IAMF presented classical music by composers from the region in an effort to foster Pan-American solidarity through classical music. However, the concert programming and the subsequent musical criticism shows that in spite of organizers’ claims to “promote closer relations and understanding,” US critics characterized the works by Latin American composers with essentializing terms, such as ‘exotic’, highlighting the differences between US and Latin American composers. By examining the careers of Latin American composers after their participation in the IAMF we can surmise that the individuals who benefited the most from the IAMF’s exposure by and large composed in musical styles that avoided overtly nationalistic music idioms. Instead of celebrating difference and national pride, the IAMF rewarded composers who abandoned nationalistic tendencies over a more cosmopolitan approach that was promoted by certain US composers and critics at the time. Furthermore, the content of the concert programs reflected and reinforced existing Cold War political tensions, rather than serve as a bridge for mutual understanding. Additionally, the IAMF must be considered in relation to other music festivals of the region, in particular the Latin American Music Festivals of Caracas, Venezuela, that preceded the IAMF in 1954 and 1957 and which continues to this day. Tracing the connections between these two festivals reveals that the aesthetic tendencies that favored so-called universal compositional techniques were not entirely the product of the US music establishment, but rather a combination of European and North American trends along with emerging preferences among Latin American composers and critics in the 1950s.

Music and Sound Studies Colloquium: Marysol Quevedo, “Music of the Hemisphere: the Inter-American Music Festival, Cold War Cultural Diplomacy, and ‘Universal’ Musical Aesthetics”