Barley Norton is Reader in Ethnomusicology and head of the Asian Music Unit in the Music Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is co-editor of Music and Protest in 1968 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), which received the American Musicology Society’s 2014 Ruth A. Solie Award. Naomi Matsumoto is currently Lecturer in Music at Goldsmiths, University of London and is working on Italian opera of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. She has received several awards, including the British Federation of Women Graduate National Award, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation British Award, the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Award, and the JSPS Symposium Award.
With its critical interrogation of the very idea of music as heritage, as well as for its breadth in approach and balance, this fine essay collection stands out from the recent plethora of heritage scholarship. Alongside illuminating ethnographic case studies that reveal divergent perspectives on heritage safeguarding policies and their outcomes, a few chapters examine the use of video to represent musical heritage - a recent but understudied requirement of UNESCO inscription. Of special note is the volume's attention to so-called 'Western classical music', an arguably threatened sphere typically absent from heritage discourse, and its focus on musical creativity, improvisation and performance practice as aspects of heritage. Engaging and thought provoking; sure to be an important point of reference for music scholars. Dr Henry Stobart, Royal Holloway, University of London. This important and timely book is a must-read. It will lead stakeholders and researchers in the fields of music and cultural policy to reconsider the significance of music as heritage and to creatively develop new methods of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Tokumaru Yosihiko, Professor Emeritus at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo.