Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics looks at a variety of popular and folk music from around the world, with examples of British, Slovene, Chinese and American songs, poems and musicals. Charles Taylor says that “it is through story that we find or devise ways of living bearably in time”; one can make the same claim for music. Inexorably tied to time, to the measure of the beat, but freed from time by the polysemous potential of the words, song rapidly becomes “our” song, helping to cement memory and community, to make the past comprehensible and the present bearable. The authors of the fifteen chapters in this volume demonstrate how lyrics set to music can reflect, express and construct collective identities, both traditional and contemporary.
Carols of Birds, Bells, and Sacred Hymns from Ukraine
This anthology of Ukrainian carols is a prism through which Ukraine’s history, culture, and vibrant spirit are revealed. It includes the original “Carol of the Bells,” music scores, translations, and the gripping narratives of choral activism that helped a nation survive.
