Benjamin Brinner
Biographic Data
| ID | 3621940 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin Brinner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin |
| FAMILY NAME | Brinner |
| SIGNATURE | BRINNER B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Lontar Foundation Wayang Educational Package (review)
Listening to an Earlier Java: Aesthetics, Gender, and the Music of Wayang in Central Java (review)
Reviewed by: Listening to an Earlier Java: Aesthetics, Gender, and the Music of Wayang in Central Java Benjamin Brinner (bio) Listening to an Earlier Java: Aesthetics, Gender, and the Music of Wayang in Central Java. Sarah Weiss. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2006. 187 pp. + CD-ROM. In an impressive feat of scholarship Weiss brings together keen ethnographic observation with interpretation of literary texts, and a complex theoretical apparatus as she lead…
Bustan Abraham
Bustan Abraham also brought together Jewish and Arab musicians, but differed greatly in constitution and focus. He issued recordings at a steady pace of one CD every two years or so. The eponymous Bustan Abraham appeared in 1992, less than a year after the band formed. The second album, Pictures Through the Painted Window, included one song, performed by three guest artists, in Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish. His recordings all appeared under the im…
Representations of Place and Time
With music, words, and images, the musicians in Israel's ethnic music scene map the past, present, and future of their cultural terrain. They refer to places, times, and heritages through their choices of titles for compositions, albums, and ensembles. The images in their publicity and CD covers are tools for evoking particular historical, geographical, and cultural associations, while the texts of publicity materials and liner notes convey more …
A Larger Network—The Ethnic Music Scene in Israel
Professional musicians are always enmeshed in larger sets of relationships as they join, create, and reshape networks relevant to their musical work. At all stages of their careers they navigate the links that bind them to others with related interests and needs in order, for instance, to find employment and partners for performances. The network concept can usefully be extended further to include institutions such as schools, events such as fest…
Alei Hazayit
In 1991, the band Alei Hazayit was formed in Jerusalem by two strong-willed individuals who differed in gender, class, ethnicity, religion, and linguistic and musical competence, yet found the basis for a deep personal connection. Their band merged very different musical strands, taking well-known songs in Hebrew and Arabic, but giving them a new flavor, a new color, and in so doing, represented the possibility for peaceful and fruitful collabora…
Musical Mixtures—Fusion of Styles and Styles of Fusion
The chapter title indicates both the centrality of this activity and the diverse ways in which musicians have undertaken it, while foregrounding a problematic label. Fusion denotes the combination of disparate elements into a whole, but for some musicians it connotes shallowness due to the popularity of the term in world music circles and the perceived superficiality of much of the music advertised as fusion. The term hybrid is an unattractive su…
Israeli Musical Life
The courtyard of the Hebrew Union College in West Jerusalem fills with a mix of Israeli adults and rowdy Colorado teenagers on a summer trip to Israel. Rows of plastic armchairs face a temporary stage flanked by speaker towers and banks of colored stage lights. Shlomo Bar, the leader of Habreira Hativ'it, enters last and sits on a high stool in front of and higher than the arc of musicians on chairs. Bar tells the audience in Hebrew how happy he …
First Encounters
A ceremony was held on the West Bank to mark one of the first stages in the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. This was a closed event, marked by considerable tension. Most of the people present probably had had few peaceful or pleasant encounters with members of the other side, certainly not on a more or less equal footing. A few years later an audience gathered at a crafts f…
Two Bands, Two Interactive Musical Networks
In this chapter, Alei Hazayit and Bustan Abraham serve as contrasting instances of small networks that formed and functioned within a particular set of circumstances. But first, three caveats regarding omniscience, representativeness, and balance. To document completely the microdynamics of these two bands, their members, and their interactions over a period of twelve years would be a gargantuan task, demanding omnipresence and omniscience, posit…
Arab Musicians in Israel and the West Bank
Music flourishes as an essential element of celebration, but quality languishes under the tyranny of the lowest common denominator. Jamal Sa'id, a popular Palestinian drummer, summed up his experience playing for weddings and other celebrations in the West Bank and Israel when we spoke in Jerusalem in the early 1990s. Most have withdrawn completely from this mainstream; those who continue to participate do so for the sizable income or to fulfill …
Roots in the Past, Routes to the Future
Despite the seemingly endless, cyclical nature of conflict in the region, tremendous change has occurred since the early 1990s, much of it outside the spotlight of news coverage. Alongside the hardening of divisions, such as the rise to power of Hamas and the entrenchment of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, there have been signs of readiness to compromise, to enter into meaningful relationships across deep divisions. Musicians in the ethnic musi…
Bustan Abraham's Approaches to Composition and Improvisation
An analysis of Bustan's work is offered in this chapter which is based on their recordings, but informed by observation of performances and conversations with band members. The author begins with general remarks on approaches to composition and arrangement, then focuses on how the compositions and arrangements enabled improvisation. This leads to analysis of featured improvisations in relationship to their ensemble contexts. Bustan Abraham's comp…
Yair Dalal
Yair Dalal occupies an intermediate position in the constellation of musical possibilities that encompasses Alei Hazayit and Bustan Abraham. With an international reputation for performing music that is both “ethnic” and Israeli, he draws on a greater variety of musical resources than the former, but fewer than the latter. The three most important areas in which the inclusion of Yair complicates and extends our view of this field of cultural prod…
Playing across a Divide: Israeli-Palestinian Musical Encounters
In the last decade of the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first, Israelis and Palestinians saw the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the escalation of suicide bombings and retaliations in the region. During this tumultuous time, numerous collaborations between Israeli and Palestinian musicians coalesced into a significant music…
Indonesia, Central Java
Pesindhèn
Performance practice: Non-Western and traditional music
Performing practice
Indonesia
Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales
Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales. Laurie J. Sears. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. xxi. 349 pp., illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, index
The Life in Gendhing: Current Approaches to Javanese Gamelan
Page range: 169-186
Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction
How do musicians know what they know? This study explores the nature of musical competence. Using the collaborative structure of gamelan - Javanese ensemble music - as a point of departure, this work lays the foundation for a comprehensive theory of musical competence and interaction. Using illustrative examples from a variety of traditions, Benjamin Brinner first examines the elements and characteristics of musical competence, the different kind…
Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction
Cultural Matrices and the Shaping of Innovation in Central Javanese Performing Arts
Analyse des manieres dont les musiciens javanais donnent un sens aux connexions extensives dans et entre les traditions du « gamelan », du theâtre et de la danse. L'A. aborde les notions de distinctions, de symetrie, d'equilibre et d'etat complet qui caracterisent les explications javanaises de l'innovation dans ces arts du spectacle. L'etude est centree autour du concept de matrice culturelle, ensemble de categories cree par l'intersection de de…
Playing across a Divide: Israeli-Palestinian Musical Encounters
In the last decade of the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first, Israelis and Palestinians saw the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the escalation of suicide bombings and retaliations in the region. During this tumultuous time, numerous collaborations between Israeli and Palestinian musicians coalesced into a significant music…
Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction
Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales
Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales. Laurie J. Sears. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. xxi. 349 pp., illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, index
The Life in Gendhing: Current Approaches to Javanese Gamelan
Page range: 169-186
Cultural Matrices and the Shaping of Innovation in Central Javanese Performing Arts
Analyse des manieres dont les musiciens javanais donnent un sens aux connexions extensives dans et entre les traditions du « gamelan », du theâtre et de la danse. L'A. aborde les notions de distinctions, de symetrie, d'equilibre et d'etat complet qui caracterisent les explications javanaises de l'innovation dans ces arts du spectacle. L'etude est centree autour du concept de matrice culturelle, ensemble de categories cree par l'intersection de de…
At the Border of Sound and Silence: The Use and Function of Pathetan in Javanese Gamelan
Freedom and Formulaity in the "Suling" Playing of Bapak Tarnopangrawit
Etude du jeu de « suling » (flute) d'un musicien javanais, Pak Tarno, dans le cadre d'un « gamelan ». Chaque phrase musicale est une succession de courtes notes reliees ou separees par des pauses. Le musicien est relativement libre mais il doit respecter un certain phrase, une structure metrique, un rythme, une tonalite, un registre auxquels il ajoutera de nombreuses ornementations
Cultural Matrices and the Shaping of Innovation in Central Javanese Performing Arts
Analyse des manieres dont les musiciens javanais donnent un sens aux connexions extensives dans et entre les traditions du « gamelan », du theâtre et de la danse. L'A. aborde les notions de distinctions, de symetrie, d'equilibre et d'etat complet qui caracterisent les explications javanaises de l'innovation dans ces arts du spectacle. L'etude est centree autour du concept de matrice culturelle, ensemble de categories cree par l'intersection de de…
Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction
The Life in Gendhing: Current Approaches to Javanese Gamelan
Page range: 169-186
Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction
How do musicians know what they know? This study explores the nature of musical competence. Using the collaborative structure of gamelan - Javanese ensemble music - as a point of departure, this work lays the foundation for a comprehensive theory of musical competence and interaction. Using illustrative examples from a variety of traditions, Benjamin Brinner first examines the elements and characteristics of musical competence, the different kind…
Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales
Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales. Laurie J. Sears. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. xxi. 349 pp., illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, index
Indonesia, Central Java
Pesindhèn
Performance practice: Non-Western and traditional music
Performing practice
Indonesia
Bustan Abraham
Bustan Abraham also brought together Jewish and Arab musicians, but differed greatly in constitution and focus. He issued recordings at a steady pace of one CD every two years or so. The eponymous Bustan Abraham appeared in 1992, less than a year after the band formed. The second album, Pictures Through the Painted Window, included one song, performed by three guest artists, in Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish. His recordings all appeared under the im…
Representations of Place and Time
With music, words, and images, the musicians in Israel's ethnic music scene map the past, present, and future of their cultural terrain. They refer to places, times, and heritages through their choices of titles for compositions, albums, and ensembles. The images in their publicity and CD covers are tools for evoking particular historical, geographical, and cultural associations, while the texts of publicity materials and liner notes convey more …
A Larger Network—The Ethnic Music Scene in Israel
Professional musicians are always enmeshed in larger sets of relationships as they join, create, and reshape networks relevant to their musical work. At all stages of their careers they navigate the links that bind them to others with related interests and needs in order, for instance, to find employment and partners for performances. The network concept can usefully be extended further to include institutions such as schools, events such as fest…
Alei Hazayit
In 1991, the band Alei Hazayit was formed in Jerusalem by two strong-willed individuals who differed in gender, class, ethnicity, religion, and linguistic and musical competence, yet found the basis for a deep personal connection. Their band merged very different musical strands, taking well-known songs in Hebrew and Arabic, but giving them a new flavor, a new color, and in so doing, represented the possibility for peaceful and fruitful collabora…
Musical Mixtures—Fusion of Styles and Styles of Fusion
The chapter title indicates both the centrality of this activity and the diverse ways in which musicians have undertaken it, while foregrounding a problematic label. Fusion denotes the combination of disparate elements into a whole, but for some musicians it connotes shallowness due to the popularity of the term in world music circles and the perceived superficiality of much of the music advertised as fusion. The term hybrid is an unattractive su…
Israeli Musical Life
The courtyard of the Hebrew Union College in West Jerusalem fills with a mix of Israeli adults and rowdy Colorado teenagers on a summer trip to Israel. Rows of plastic armchairs face a temporary stage flanked by speaker towers and banks of colored stage lights. Shlomo Bar, the leader of Habreira Hativ'it, enters last and sits on a high stool in front of and higher than the arc of musicians on chairs. Bar tells the audience in Hebrew how happy he …
First Encounters
A ceremony was held on the West Bank to mark one of the first stages in the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. This was a closed event, marked by considerable tension. Most of the people present probably had had few peaceful or pleasant encounters with members of the other side, certainly not on a more or less equal footing. A few years later an audience gathered at a crafts f…
Two Bands, Two Interactive Musical Networks
In this chapter, Alei Hazayit and Bustan Abraham serve as contrasting instances of small networks that formed and functioned within a particular set of circumstances. But first, three caveats regarding omniscience, representativeness, and balance. To document completely the microdynamics of these two bands, their members, and their interactions over a period of twelve years would be a gargantuan task, demanding omnipresence and omniscience, posit…
Arab Musicians in Israel and the West Bank
Music flourishes as an essential element of celebration, but quality languishes under the tyranny of the lowest common denominator. Jamal Sa'id, a popular Palestinian drummer, summed up his experience playing for weddings and other celebrations in the West Bank and Israel when we spoke in Jerusalem in the early 1990s. Most have withdrawn completely from this mainstream; those who continue to participate do so for the sizable income or to fulfill …
Roots in the Past, Routes to the Future
Despite the seemingly endless, cyclical nature of conflict in the region, tremendous change has occurred since the early 1990s, much of it outside the spotlight of news coverage. Alongside the hardening of divisions, such as the rise to power of Hamas and the entrenchment of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, there have been signs of readiness to compromise, to enter into meaningful relationships across deep divisions. Musicians in the ethnic musi…
Bustan Abraham's Approaches to Composition and Improvisation
An analysis of Bustan's work is offered in this chapter which is based on their recordings, but informed by observation of performances and conversations with band members. The author begins with general remarks on approaches to composition and arrangement, then focuses on how the compositions and arrangements enabled improvisation. This leads to analysis of featured improvisations in relationship to their ensemble contexts. Bustan Abraham's comp…
Yair Dalal
Yair Dalal occupies an intermediate position in the constellation of musical possibilities that encompasses Alei Hazayit and Bustan Abraham. With an international reputation for performing music that is both “ethnic” and Israeli, he draws on a greater variety of musical resources than the former, but fewer than the latter. The three most important areas in which the inclusion of Yair complicates and extends our view of this field of cultural prod…
Playing across a Divide: Israeli-Palestinian Musical Encounters
In the last decade of the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first, Israelis and Palestinians saw the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the escalation of suicide bombings and retaliations in the region. During this tumultuous time, numerous collaborations between Israeli and Palestinian musicians coalesced into a significant music…
Art (21 works) · Visual arts (14 works) · History (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Diverse Musicological Studies (11 works) · Musical (11 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Aesthetics (9 works) · Literature (9 works) · Music History and Culture (9 works)