Thinking About Music History: An Introduction to Marxism

Abstract: This essay introduces Marxism as an analytical method for thinking about music history, arguing that musicology’s longstanding idealist orientation has limited its ability to grapple with capitalism, class, and material power. Beginning from the author’s own position as a disciplinary “outsider,” the essay situates Marxist analysis alongside familiar musicological engagements with gender, race, and sexuality, highlighting the field’s relative neglect of political economy. It outlines key Marxist concepts (such as the means of production, private property, labor, wage relations, ideology, and materialism) and explains how these ideas offer a framework for understanding music not as an abstract realm of ideas but as a set of practices embedded in historical relations of power, exploitation, and social reproduction.

The essay then demonstrates the usefulness of a Marxist approach through a case study of racism in U.S. classical music institutions, focusing on how idealist diversity initiatives obscure the material histories and ongoing functions of elite cultural spaces. Drawing on theories of racial capitalism and urban redevelopment, the essay shows how institutions like Lincoln Center have been implicated in displacement, wealth extraction, and racialized inequality, even as they position themselves as agents of cultural inclusion. Rather than offering prescriptive solutions, the article argues that Marxist analysis clarifies the structural limits of institutional reform and redirects attention toward broader material conditions that shape musical life. Ultimately, the essay positions Marxism as a flexible, evolving toolkit that enables music historians to ask new questions about labor, value, race, and power across musical repertoires and historical contexts.

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Latin America and the Decolonization of Classical Music

Abstract: This essay explores three related stories of classical music in Latin America that reveal the complexities, failures, and successes of decolonizing projects: the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM), the Cursos Latinoamericanos de Música Contemporánea (CLAMC), and the Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos (OEIN). The essay prompts critical reflection, questioning if projects that emerge from strictly modernizing ethos can become a space of resistance against coloniality. As a provocation, this chapter suggests that decolonizing projects, while prone to frequent failure, remain productive and worth pursuing. It concludes by urging readers to form their interpretation from the evidence, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking and individual research in shaping historical narratives and fostering a deeper understanding of complex issues.

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