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Cultural engagement and incident depression in older adults: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
Get PDFBackground: There is a recognised need for the identification of factors that might be protective against the development of depression in older adults. Over the past decade, there has been growing research demonstrating the effects of cultural engagement (which combines a number of protective factors including social interaction, cognitive stimulation and gentle physical activity) on the treatment of depression, but as yet not on its prevention.
Aims: To explore whether cultural engagement in older adults is associated with a reduced risk of developing depression over the following decade.
Method: Working with data from 2148 adults in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing who were free from depression at baseline, we used logistic regression models to explore associations between frequency of cultural engagement (including going to museums, theatre and cinema) and the risk of developing depression over the following 10 years using a combined index of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and physician-diagnosed depression. Results: There was a dose–response relationship between frequency of cultural engagement and the risk of developing depression independent of sociodemographic, health-related and social confounders. This equated to a 32% lower risk of developing depression for people who attended every few months (odds ratio (OR) = 0.68, 95% CI 0.47–0.99, P = 0.046) and a 48% lower risk for people who attended once a month or more (OR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.34–0.80, P = 0.003). Results were robust to sensitivity analyses exploring reverse causality, subclinical depressive symptoms and alternative CES-D thresholds.
Conclusions: Cultural engagement appears to be an independent risk-reducing factor for the development of depression in older age.
Declaration of interest: None
Examining the health and well-being experiences of singers in popular music
Get PDFThis study investigated the health and well-being experiences of professional singers in popular music. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of semi-structured interviews with five professional singers identified three main themes: (1) mental and physical experiences of health and support, (2) positive musical experiences and (3) barriers to health and well-being. Participants perceived health as important to their careers and viewed it as both physical and mental in nature. The singers relied on family and industry peers for support, whilst experiencing mental health challenges and physical health problems in the context of an emotionally intense landscape. Positive musical experiences involved the self-expression of songwriting, live music performance and relationships with fans, and barriers to health and well-being included touring, commercial challenges and a perceived lack of support. The findings suggest a need for increased awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by singers in popular music
The experience and perceived impact of group singing for men living with cancer: a phenomenological study
Get PDFThe aim of this study was to explore the experience and perceived impact of group singing for men with cancer. Through the lens of phenomenology, semi-structured interviews were carried out with five patients with prostate cancer, focusing on their experience of cancer, singing, and the perceived impact of the choir. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Four superordinate themes emerged from the data: (a) meeting existential changes; (b) dynamic connection to others; (c) a holistic experience; (d) a positive experience. The experience of singing was viewed by participants as: something positive; a social experience; an ineffable experience; an activity that engages the whole person. The perceived impact of singing included: providing support in the face of the existential uncertainty brought about by having cancer; a dynamic connection to others; fulfilment; enhanced wellbeing; finding some form of benefit from the cancer experience. These results indicate that group singing has potential as an appropriate intervention for men living with cancer. This study, though small-scale, sheds some light on how to deliver holistic healthcare and how to optimise current choirs in health settings
Solo and ensemble brass instrument recordings
Get PDFReview of the following recordings:
Anneke Scott: Le cor mélodique: mélodies, vocalises & chants by Gounod, Meifred & Gallay (Resonus RES10228); Alec Frank-Gemmill: Before Mozart: early horn concertos (BIS 2315); Robert Farley/Orpheus Britannicus: A courtly garland for Baroque trumpet (Resonus RES10220); English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble: Music for windy instruments: sounds from the court of James I (Resonus RES10225); Various performers: Manuel Cardoso: Magnificat Octavi Toni; Magnificat Quinti Toni; Missa Secundi Toni; Motets (Toccata Classics TOCC 0476); Various performers: Gabrieli for brass: Venetian extravaganza (Linn CKD 581)
The value of group singing: preliminary insights from a phenomenological approach to understanding a complex cultural activity
Get PDFGroup singing is a feature of all human society, facilitating individual wellbeing as well as group cohesion and interpersonal trust and empathy (Clift, 2013). It is one of the most accessible forms of music-making, and its complex benefits are widely accepted and increasingly used to assist in the maintenance and recovery of individual health and wellbeing, although a critical understanding of the mechanisms underpinning such benefits is still in its infancy (Clift, 2013; Fancourt et al., 2016; Hallam, 2015; Livesey, Morrison, Clift, & Camic, 2012).
Responding to the call for greater rigour in articulating the value of arts and culture to people and society whilst recognizing, “the imperative to reposition first-hand, individual experience of arts and culture at the heart of enquiry into cultural value” (Crossick & Kaszynska, 2016), Distributed Ethnography provides a ‘qualiquant’ methodology for building understanding of group singing, grounded in phenomenology yet able to identify trends and patterns of experience beyond that of the individual. An emergent hypothesis from the current study is that musical entrainment and interpersonal neurobiological ‘resonance’ are sympathetically entangled, and that participants in group singing activities are able to recognise this phenomenon when it occurs, as contributing to the wellbeing effects of the activity.
Furthermore, the use of methodologies such as Distributed Ethnography suggests that research into the complex benefits of cultural participation can be undertaken morerigorously without discounting the ‘centrality of experience’ (Crossick & Kaszynska, 2016, p. 21) or interfering with it unduly, thus leading to a more robust and critical understanding of the value of arts and culture to people and society
Music together, music apart: on democratic communities
No full textThis article reviews the following books:
Artistic Citizenship: Artistry, Social Responsibility, and Ethical Praxis, edited by David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman and Wayne D. Bowman, New York, Oxford University Press, 2016. 614 pp. ISBN 9780199393749 (hardcover); 9780199393756 (paperback).
David Toop, Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom. London, Bloomsbury, 2016. 336 pp. ISBN 9781501314513 (hardcover); 9781628927696 (paperback).
Nancy S. Love, Trendy Fascism: White Power Music and the Future of Democracy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2016. 268 pp. ISBN 9781438462035 (hardcover); 9781438462042 (paperback)
Händels Musik und Programmgestaltung in Londons Kristallpalast, 1859–1874 [Programming Handel’s music at the Crystal Palace, 1859–1874]
Get PDFDieser Aufsatz beleuchtet die Funktion gemischter Konzertprogramme im Hin-blick auf den historischen Aufführungskontext Händelscher Musik sowie den Kanonisierungsprozess verschiedener anfänglich wenig bekannter Werke. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt dabei auf den Konzerten im Kristallpalast im Londoner Vorort Sydenham in den Jahren 1859 bis 1874, wobei sowohl die regulären Samstagskonzerte als auch die ‚Selection Days‘ des Triennial Handel Festival berücksichtigt werden. Die Untersuchung zeigt, wie einzelne Nummern aus Händels großen Werken Einzug in die Samstagskonzerte fanden und wie Händels Musik für die Aufführungen an den Selection Days, den Herzstücken des Festivals, neu zusammengestellt, aufgeführt und anschließend veröffentlicht wurden.
Aufführungsgeschichte – weniger die in der historischen Aufführungspra-xis bedachten spezifischen spieltechnischen Nuancen, sondern die eigentliche Biographie eines Werkes auf der Bühne – wird häufig im Prozess des „Kontex tualisierens, Inszenierens und Vermittelns“ übersehen, der laut Lydia Goehr einen entscheidenden Anteil daran hat, den Rang eines Werks dem Publikum näherzubringen. Meist rückt die besser erforschte kritische und wissenschaft-liche Literatur in den Vordergrund. Die im 19. Jahrhundert gängige Praxis, klangliche Vielfalt durch thematisch gemischte Konzertprogramme und die Einbeziehung diverser Genres herzustellen, wird besonders oft als Verstoß gegen die ‚Absichten des Komponisten oder der Komponistin‘ abgetan oder als Ver-such verstanden, den scheinbar richtigen Aufführungskontext eines Werks zu finden. Dennoch wird eingeräumt, dass diese Vorstellungen oft nicht mit der Erfahrung des Komponisten oder der Komponistin im Einklang stehen. Je-doch ermöglichen derartige Untersuchungen interessante Einblicke in Kanoni-sierungsprozesse sowie in Kräfteverhältnisse zwischen KomponistInnen (heute und in der Geschichte), MusikerInnen und dem Publikum. Wie dieser Aufsatz zeigen wird, herrschte in der Musikkritik des 19. Jahrhundert keine Einigkeit über die flexible Programmgestaltung, aber sie hatte dennoch einen Anteil an der „weitverbreiteten und umfassenden Vertrautheit“, die ein kanonisiertes Werk ausmacht.5 Obwohl eine derartige Flexibilität in der Programmgestal-tung – zum Beispiel das Ersetzen oder Neuzusammensetzen von Gesangsnum-mern oder die Aufführung ausgewählter Ausschnitte eines Werks – heutzutage in der Aufführung Händelscher Werke kaum noch anzutreffen ist, war sie zu Händels Lebzeiten die Norm und hatte auch einen Einfluss auf den komposi-torischen Schaffensprozess.*******This essay explores the role of nineteenth-century miscellaneous concert programming in the history of Handel performance and the canonisation stages of various initially little-known works. It focuses on the concerts at the Crystal Palace in the London suburb of Sydenham in 1859–1874, both the regular Saturday concerts, and the Selection Days of the Triennial Handel Festivals. It reveals how individual numbers from Handel’s large-scale works were presented in the Saturday concerts; and how Handel’s music was reassembled, performed, and subsequently published in the Selection Day concerts, the central concert of the vast Handel Festivals. Performance history – not so much the individual nuances which usually preoccupy historical performance practitioners, but the actual concert programming – is a much overlooked part of the ‘framing, staging and placement’ which Lydia Goehr has argued is a crucial way of communicating a work’s status to audiences; it is usually overlooked in favour of the far better scrutinised critical and scholarly literature. Miscellany programming – the widespread nineteenth-century practice of ensuring timbral variety by mixing genres in a concert in an unthematised way – is especially often dismissed as a contravention of the ‘composer’s intentions’, or a stage on the way to a ‘correct’ understanding of how to perform a work, even while acknowledging that those intentions often have little to do with the composer’s experience. However, it can reveal an enormous amount about necessary processes of canonisation, as well as the complex power balances between composers (living and dead), performers and audiences. As is shown below, nineteenth-century critics were inconsistent in their responses to such flexibility, but it was nevertheless part of the ‘widespread and multivalent familiarity’ which ensures a work’s canonical life. Furthermore, while flexibility – for instance, replacing or recomposing vocal numbers, interpolating instrumental numbers, or performing just sections of a work – is now rarely encountered in Handel performance, it was the norm in his day and clearly underpinned compositional thought. Loose ties between movements become a positive advantage for nineteenth-century programming. Ultimately, the act of appropriation that performers undertook when they selected fragments which suited their needs from a longer score is worth reconsidering today, as concert practices become increasingly stagnant and rule-bound
Understanding wellbeing among college music students and amateur musicians in Western Switzerland
Get PDFMusical performance requires the ability to master a complex integration of highly specialized motor, cognitive, and perceptual skills developed over years of practice. It often means also being able to deal with considerable pressure within dynamic environments. Consequently, many musicians suffer from health-related problems and report a large number of physical and psychological complaints. Our research aimed to evaluate and analyze the wellbeing of two distinct groups of musicians, college music students and amateur performers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. A total sample of 126 musicians was recruited for the study (mean age ±SD = 22.4 ± 4.5 years, 71 male). Wellbeing was assessed through the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire evaluating two general measures, quality of life (QoL) and general health, and four specific dimensions: physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment. For both groups, respondents’ QoL was high on each measure: median scores were higher than 4 for the two general measures and higher than 70 for the four specific dimensions. Among the dimensions, respondents had the highest mean score for environment (75.0), then social relationships and physical health (74.0 and 73.8, respectively), and finally, psychological health (70.3). Differences between groups of musicians emerged in terms of overall QoL and general health, as well as the physical health dimension, where college music students scored lower than the amateur musicians; conversely, college music students scored higher than the amateurs on social relationships. Our overview of musicians’ wellbeing in Western Switzerland demonstrates that, while music making can offer some health protective effects, there is a need for greater health awareness and promotion among advanced music students. This research offers insight into musicians’ wellbeing and points to the importance of involving different actors (teachers, administrators, support staff) in facilitating healthy music making
Canterbury males: review of ‘The Canterbury Catch Club 1826: music in the frame’ by Chris Price.
No full textReframing the musical: race, culture and identity
No full textThis critical and inclusive edited collection offers an overview of the musical in relation to issues of race, culture and identity. Bringing together contributions from cultural, American and theatre studies for the first time, the chapters offer fresh perspectives on musical theatre history, calling for a radical and inclusive new approach. By questioning ideas about what the musical is about and who it for, this groundbreaking book retells the story of the musical, prioritising previously neglected voices to reshape our understanding of the form.
Timely and engaging, this is required reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of musical theatre. It offers an intersectional approach which will also be invaluable for theatre practitioners