Applied musicology and research on music festivals with conferences

Abstract

Festivals with conferences are music industry related events that offer talks, panels, workshops, and other formats on various topics of interest for musicians, managers, booking agents, festival organizers, and other music industry actors. Author’s initial involvement with the topic came from the interest in social relations and ecosystems in which music comes to being – not only creatively, but in terms of music creators gaining platforms, opportunities to perform, or to place their art in digital environment for further dissemination. The research methods included visits to conferences as specific sort of fieldwork, participant observation, taking part in programs and, crucially, interviews, thus blurring the line between musicology and ethnomusicology. However, one of the interesting “side-results” of this endeavor was questioning of the role of musicologist in this specific, practice- and industry-oriented environment. While being pushed outside “ivory tower” and comfort of academia, musicologist is at the same time challenged to offer specific understanding of music in social context, music values and artistic work coming from the discipline of musicology, finding its practical application in more public and diverse sphere.