Toward a New, Musical Paradigm of Place

The Port River Symphonic of Chester Schultz

Bibliographic Data

ID3914198
AuthorsRobin Ryan (0000-0001-9960-6923, Edith Cowan University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume4
Issue1
Pages41-67
Publication date2014-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/22011919-3614926
OpenAlexW1132983046
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited19

In privileging music as a focus for applied ecology, the goal of this essay is to deepen perspectives on the musical representation of land in an age of complex environmental challenge. As the metaphor driving public narration of environmental crises, the notion of Earth as our home-signified by the prefix "eco"-brings with it a critical expectation for the musical academy to retreat from bland talk about a "sense of place." Based on the premise that damaged ecologies are a matter of concern to many people, Indigenous and Settler; and building on the late Val Plumwood's theory of "shadow" or "denied" places (Plumwood, 2008), the author introduces Within Our Reach: A Symphony of the Port River Soundscapes by anti-elitist South Australian composer Chester Schultz (b. 1945). Inspired by the tradition of R. Murray Schafer's performances for outdoor sites, Schultz predicated this niche symphony on the noise-polluting defoliation of Adelaide's "wetland wonder," the Old Port Reach. Presented as a series of narrative soundscapes, the symphony harnesses the power of music, including popular genres, to engender a sense of local "belonging" to the Port. In an ecological subtext an Indigenous Elder sings in the re-awakening language of the Kaurna people who, in 1890, were evicted from their "nourishing terrain" (terminology after Rose, 1996) by the CSR Sugar Refinery. Schultz's ethical musical representation of local oral, natural and industrial history generates a benchmark opus for what shadow place composition might sound like in the modern global city

Soundscape · Conservation Techniques and Studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Diverse Musicological Studies

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