Research Area B Creative Dissonances (B2)

Project Leaders: Oliver Seibt, Barbara Mittler, Dorothea Redepenning
Project Members: Patrick Frölicher, Michael Fuhr, Isabell Seider

Asian-European crossovers in both popular and art music are among the most successful experiments within the global music scene. This does not mean that music is a “universal language,” however: the alleged “harmony” of “World Music” is a problematic construction, hiding the cultural consequences of complex historical processes. One of its characteristic asymmetries is the fact that Western critics have described non-Western musical cultures in terms of deficiencies. Such evaluations have been adopted by Asians themselves and have been integrated into their educational systems. This process again triggered a creative impulse which constitutes yet another cultural flow, now returning to Western musical culture. This project aimed to identify and to describe the creative dissonances inherent and engendered in this process of (double) mirroring which has produced challenging artistic conceptions of global interest.