• DOI:10.14418/wes01.3.28
• Corpus ID: 160746676

Multiplicity and Belonging among New York City Improviser-Composers, 2000-2011

@inproceedings{Scherbenske2014MultiplicityAB,
  title={Multiplicity and Belonging among New York City Improviser-Composers, 2000-2011},
  author={Amanda L. Scherbenske},
  year={2014}
}

• Amanda L. Scherbenske
• Published 2014
• Art

Multiplicity and Belonging among New York City Improviser-Composers, 2000-2011 Amanda L. Scherbenske This dissertation engages musical multiplicity and belonging among New York City-based improviser-composers active since the early 2000s. It uses concepts from network theory and extends scholarship on multiplicity to discuss the complex entanglement of sounds, settings, identities, and discourses. It argues that while improviser-composers participate in myriad genres, their shared sensibilities are outgrowths of the creative and political labors of elder generations of African American experimental artists. Improviser-composers forge unique relationships to an African American musical history that has embraced artistic inclusion and rejected essentialist narratives. It contends that improviser-composers perform multiplicity and form their own assemblage of belonging by developing and maintaining a personal network. Improviser-composers collaborate with colleagues, employ many musical styles, and traverse scenes and art worlds to ends that are more than musical: they do so to negotiate belonging and contest essentialism. Ultimately, this dissertation challenges such reified binaries as black/white, jazz/classical, and improviser/composer in American musics.