Reimagine to Revitalise

Focusing on vocal ornamentation found in the classical music of South India and Monteverdi's operas, the author highlights the longstanding hybridity and plurality of musical cultures and implications for the decolonisation of music performance and education.

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How can the classical Karnatik music of South India illuminate performers' and researchers' understanding of the art music of seventeenth-century Italy, and specifically Monteverdi's operas? Both art forms attach great value to the skill of vocal ornamentation, and by exploring the singer's practice moving between them, this Element reveals how intercultural approaches can enable the reconsideration of the history of Western music from a global perspective. Using methods from historical and comparative musicology, theory and practice-based research, Charulatha Mani analyses vocal ornamentation and technique and arrives at an innovative approach to studying musics from the past. Musical practice, the author argues, is an enactment of hybridity and the artistic product of plurality. Specifically, in early modern Europe the fluid movement of musicians from the East paved the way to a plurality of musical cultures. This finding holds deep implications for diversity in and decolonisation of current music performance and education.