This edited collection will consider the varied roles of classical music in the German Democratic Republic. Traditionally, classical music was used as an cultural legitimization for the GDR state, in the form of the “bourgeois humanist inheritance.” The many professional orchestras in the GDR were touted as a proof of the country’s Kultur. Classical music could be seen as the polar opposite of Americanizing pop culture and of musical modernism, decried as formalist. Despite these pressures, there were still musical modernists in the GDR, and classical music was not only a propof the state. This anthology will uncover these nonconformist tendencies and question the assumption that classical music in the GDR meant only respectability. Leon Botstein’s concerts with the American Symphony in 2009 and recent German scholarship point to a growing interest in this field. This volume aims to offer a broad examination from perspectives within cultural studies, musicology, the humanities, and social sciences.

Possible topics include but are not limited to
--Music and film, representations or uses of classical music in film, films about music and/or composers
--Music and literature
--Status of musical modernism in the GDR
--Comparison/contrast of GDR music scene with other Eastern European countries
--Musical performance and its representative functions
--Music as part of German cultural heritage
--Politicized classical music
--Music and “humanism”
--Music education in the GDR
--Politicized scholarship/musicology

Please contact the co-editors with questions. Send 250-word abstracts in English and brief biographical statements to both Kyle Frackman (Kyle.Frackman@ubc.ca) and Larson Powell (powelllar@umkc.edu) by January 15, 2013. Completed essays will be due (tentatively) by July 1, 2013.