Political Ontologies of Music: Rethinking the Relationship between Music and Politics in the Twenty-first Century

Political Ontologies of Music: Rethinking the Relationship between Music and Politics in the Twenty-first Century (ONTOMUSIC) explores with an innovative theoretical framework the relationship between composers’ ontological assumptions, political thought and ethical concerns.

Ontological assumptions are defined as personal or collective assertions about the nature and means of music, which reveal our beliefs on what music is as well as what music can do or accomplish.

ONTOMUSIC argues that integrating composers’ ontological assumptions into the exploration of their political or ethical commitments makes possible the study of a broader range of living composers and their views about issues such as social justice, human rights and the environment.

The three main research objectives are: 1) to understand how composers’ ontological assumptions shape the political possibilities of their music within a specific symbolic and social order; 2) to examine how composers have embedded their ethical concerns in specific compositional processes, performance settings and musical works; 3) to produce new first-hand sources and testimonies by composers, in particular women composers, where they develop their ontological assumptions connected to their ethical and political concerns.

This timely and interdisciplinary research seeks to connect empirical investigation and theoretical analysis: empirical methods include data collection through open-ended interviews and selective archival research; theoretical methods involve a variety of music analyses related to compositional processes, musical practices and works, as well as conceptual analysis on ontological assumptions mobilised by the composers themselves.

ONTOMUSIC will allow new research avenues on the relationship between music and political orders, advancing our understanding of how composers engage critically with the major ethical and political challenges facing our societies.