Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality

by Sebanti Chatterjee

Overview

Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality is about sacred and secular choirs in Goa and Shillong across churches, seminaries, schools, auditoriums, classrooms, reality TV shows, and festivals. Voice and genre emerge as social objects annotated by tradition, nostalgia, and innovation. Piety literally and metaphorically shapes the Christian lifeworld, predominantly those belonging to the Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Indigeneity structures the political and cultural motifs in the making of the Christian musical traditions. Located at the intersection of Sociology, Anthropology, and Ethnomusicology, the choral voices emplace 'affect' and the visual-aural dispatch. Thus, sonic spectrum holds space for indigenous and global musicality.

This ethnographic work will be useful for scholars researching music and sound studies, religious studies, cultural anthropology, and sociology of India.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501379871
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/22/2024
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sebanti Chaterjee is Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at SRM University-AP, India. She is a recipient of India Foundation of Arts Research Grant, the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SRA FY 2016), the Indian Council of Social Science Research fellowship, and former editorial member of Serenade Magazine.

Table of Contents

ListofIllustrations
Prologue: Warming Up
1 Introduction: Choral beginnings: Inside the chapel and a home studio
1.1 A biography of community- delineating the Sacred and the Heritage
1.2 Establishing a musical cadence
1.3 Framing choral music within Christian landscapes
1.4 Aural Intentions: Summary of chapters
2 Making of the Indigenous
2.1 Interrogating the Indigenous
2.2 Emplacing the Indigenous
2.3 Understanding Indigeneity, Inculturality and Decoloniality
2.4 Music and Decoloniality
2.5 Exploring the relationship between Indigeneity and Sacrality
2.6 Indigenous Possibilities in curricula and performance: Field narratives
2.7 Towards Sonic Interculturality
3 From Loft to the Recording Studio: Shillong Diaries
3.1 What brings you to Shillong? Introduction
3.2 Cusp of Sacrality, new Technologies and Creative Processes
3.3 Choral Voices as ethnographic objects
3.4 Short Historical Snippets about Christianity and Musicality in Khasi and Lushai Hills
3.5 Discussing Genre, Intertextuality and Territorialisation
3.6 Shillong Chamber Choir
3.7 Repertoire- Medleys/Crossovers
3.8 Beyond performance
3.9 Aroha Choir
3.10 Conclusion
4 The Language of Music: Notes from a Goan Seminary
4.1 Inhabiting the Seminary
4.2 Outlining Goan Sacred Music
4.3 A brief history of music and language in Goa
4.4 Entering the field site
4.5 Rachol Seminary
4.6 Introducing the seminarians
4.7 Syncretic musical experimentations in Goan Sacred music
4.8 Goan Sacred music- Motets
4.9 Conclusion
5 Mapping Choral Voices: Role of People and Places
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Hierarchization of voices
5.3 Indigeneity and Christian Music Tradition
5.4 Music Performance
5.5 Conclusion
6 Tutti: Concluding Section
6.1 The Musical Clef Notating Certainty- Uncertainty
6.2 Positing the Vocal Phrasing
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Glossary
Appendix
Documentary – Da Capo
Index

Editorial Reviews

Choral Voices is fantastic! In destabilizing notions of culture, colonization, and sound, Sebanti Chatterjee weaves a compelling story of belonging and faith. Through aural participation and multi-sited ethnography readers are transported to the overlooked arenas of identity and indigeneity in contemporary India, with crucial insights for worlds beyond.” —Duncan McDuie-Ra, Professor of Urban Sociology, The University of Newcastle, Australia

“Choral Voices is an important addition to the growing body of work that challenges fondly held notions of 'East' and 'West.'” —Naresh Fernandes, author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age

“This excellent study brings together an understanding of music, sound, voice, indigeneity, sacrality, and the ways in which these are knitted together in the choral music of Shillong and Goa. The book is also a moving personal account of crossing given religious, linguistic, regional, and cultural identities through the practice of music.” —Vidya Rao, singer, writer, and editor, Orient BlackSwan publishers

“Sebanti Chatterjee constructs a beautifully detailed and captivating ethnographic account of Christian choral singing within contrasting locales in India. Highlighting colonial influence as well as indigenous agency, Chatterjee's account demonstrates the intertwining roles of faith and musical genre in creating a people's sacred imagination. Her book is an important addition to anthropological and ethnomusicological studies of Christian communities.” —Monique Ingalls, Associate Professor of Music, Baylor University, USA, and author of Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community (2018)

“Sebanti Chatterjee's work is a significant contribution to the emerging field of voice studies in South Asia. Backed by a rich ethnography, it parses choral voices in multiple sites to revisit questions of repertoire, indigeneity and faith practice and in the process indexes a complex set of social relations and meaning making.” —Lakshmi Subramanian, Visiting professor of History, BITS Pilani Goa, India

From the Publisher