This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! ... more This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! (2013), Peter Pan Live! (2014), The Wiz Live! (2015), and Hairspray Live! (2016), and Fox’s Grease Live! (2016) encourage audience participation through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In these participatory events, fans, critics, producers, performers, and other actors negotiate the meanings of musical theatre and its desirable forms of liveness. Perceptions of the live are complex in a mediatized environment where the conventions of traditional theatre, television, and online social media converge. Viewers in intersecting communities and contexts, including musical theatre fandom and the Black Lives Matter movement, make meanings of these live musicals through participatory practices such as hate-watching and critical humor.
A survey of films associated with L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz shows that they offer playful ... more A survey of films associated with L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz shows that they offer playful metafilmic and material affordances, which audiences have exploited to actively participate in discourses and definitions of childhood and children’s film. By attending to these active negotiations, through what I term the films’ metafilmic address, we can acknowledge the co-presence of children and adults in the theatre without diminishing the status of family films as also fully children’s films or positioning child spectators as passive. Children, in collaboration with adult filmmakers and co-viewers, contribute to the definitions and meanings of children’s films by participating in the practices and discourses available through living repertoires of children’s film and their fictional worlds, in this case, the world of Oz.
This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! ... more This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! (2013), Peter Pan Live! (2014), The Wiz Live! (2015), and Hairspray Live! (2016), and Fox’s Grease Live! (2016) encourage audience participation through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In these participatory events, fans, critics, producers, performers, and other actors negotiate the meanings of musical theatre and its desirable forms of liveness. Perceptions of the live are complex in a mediatized environment where the conventions of traditional theatre, television, and online social media converge. Viewers in intersecting communities and contexts, including musical theatre fandom and the Black Lives Matter movement, make meanings of these live musicals through participatory practices such as hate-watching and critical humor.
Much as the musical is touted as an American art form, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) ha... more Much as the musical is touted as an American art form, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) has been called the American fairy tale. Since its publication, the book has been eclipsed in popularity by a series of musical–theatrical adaptations, which are also among the most popular shows in the canon of musicals, suggesting an affinity between musicals and Oz. Close analysis of four Oz musicals, the Broadway extravaganza of 1903, the MGM film of 1939, The Wiz (1975) and Wicked (2003) shows how the conventions of musical theatre translate the already powerful symbolic national mythology of Baum’s book into participatory expressions of American identity through embodied performance. In return, Oz gives the musical a signal national text which, through adaptation, allows the musical to reassert its own American pedigree while rearticulating the meaning of American identity at significant moments in the history of the genre.
The Childhood and Youth Study Group of the American Musicological Society is a forum for scholars... more The Childhood and Youth Study Group of the American Musicological Society is a forum for scholars interested in music and childhood, broadly conceived. While gender, race, sexuality, and disability have received increasing attention, musicology has largely overlooked the importance of children and youth in various aspects of music culture. Historically, the study of childhood has been limited in part because of the scarcity of child-related documents deemed worthy of preservation and the perception of childhood as a temporary stage of life on the way to adulthood. This limitation has held across disciplines. However, in recent decades, scholars in disciplines such as history, cultural studies, literary studies, medieval studies, sociology, and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies have turned to efforts to recover the lived experiences of children as well as the cultures that construct the category of the child. We aim to bring attention to the ways in which children and youth have played a central role in music history and institutions, shaping while being shaped by them. Because music for, by, and about children and youth has been marginalized in various canons, we believe that centering their agency as music makers, students, performers, and audiences will further our understanding of music and of its cultural as well as historical significance.
The study group will foster the many types of inquiry available for the investigation of these intersecting aspects of music, children, and childhood. Scholarly approaches to music and childhood include, but are not limited to, archival research into primary sources, the study of music composed for or about children and youth, criticism which theorizes marginalized or disenfranchised groups, and interdisciplinary and cultural studies that incorporate research from other disciplines, including ethnography, which is the core research method of contemporary childhood studies. The members of the group are broadly representative of these approaches, including scholars who engage with ethnomusicology, music theory, and music education, as well as historical musicology. These methods shed light on previously overlooked materials, performances, and performers, including young musicians and composers and vast repertoires of music created for educational purposes. It is our belief that a Music and Childhood study group is timely, necessary, and sustainable as a forum to introduce curious scholars to a new sphere of musicological inquiry while providing a formal space for scholars engaged in the study of children’s culture in music to share ideas, new research, and creative solutions to shared problems.
This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! ... more This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! (2013), Peter Pan Live! (2014), The Wiz Live! (2015), and Hairspray Live! (2016), and Fox’s Grease Live! (2016) encourage audience participation through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In these participatory events, fans, critics, producers, performers, and other actors negotiate the meanings of musical theatre and its desirable forms of liveness. Perceptions of the live are complex in a mediatized environment where the conventions of traditional theatre, television, and online social media converge. Viewers in intersecting communities and contexts, including musical theatre fandom and the Black Lives Matter movement, make meanings of these live musicals through participatory practices such as hate-watching and critical humor.
A survey of films associated with L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz shows that they offer playful ... more A survey of films associated with L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz shows that they offer playful metafilmic and material affordances, which audiences have exploited to actively participate in discourses and definitions of childhood and children’s film. By attending to these active negotiations, through what I term the films’ metafilmic address, we can acknowledge the co-presence of children and adults in the theatre without diminishing the status of family films as also fully children’s films or positioning child spectators as passive. Children, in collaboration with adult filmmakers and co-viewers, contribute to the definitions and meanings of children’s films by participating in the practices and discourses available through living repertoires of children’s film and their fictional worlds, in this case, the world of Oz.
This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! ... more This chapter explains how recent live television musicals such as NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! (2013), Peter Pan Live! (2014), The Wiz Live! (2015), and Hairspray Live! (2016), and Fox’s Grease Live! (2016) encourage audience participation through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In these participatory events, fans, critics, producers, performers, and other actors negotiate the meanings of musical theatre and its desirable forms of liveness. Perceptions of the live are complex in a mediatized environment where the conventions of traditional theatre, television, and online social media converge. Viewers in intersecting communities and contexts, including musical theatre fandom and the Black Lives Matter movement, make meanings of these live musicals through participatory practices such as hate-watching and critical humor.
Much as the musical is touted as an American art form, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) ha... more Much as the musical is touted as an American art form, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) has been called the American fairy tale. Since its publication, the book has been eclipsed in popularity by a series of musical–theatrical adaptations, which are also among the most popular shows in the canon of musicals, suggesting an affinity between musicals and Oz. Close analysis of four Oz musicals, the Broadway extravaganza of 1903, the MGM film of 1939, The Wiz (1975) and Wicked (2003) shows how the conventions of musical theatre translate the already powerful symbolic national mythology of Baum’s book into participatory expressions of American identity through embodied performance. In return, Oz gives the musical a signal national text which, through adaptation, allows the musical to reassert its own American pedigree while rearticulating the meaning of American identity at significant moments in the history of the genre.
The Childhood and Youth Study Group of the American Musicological Society is a forum for scholars... more The Childhood and Youth Study Group of the American Musicological Society is a forum for scholars interested in music and childhood, broadly conceived. While gender, race, sexuality, and disability have received increasing attention, musicology has largely overlooked the importance of children and youth in various aspects of music culture. Historically, the study of childhood has been limited in part because of the scarcity of child-related documents deemed worthy of preservation and the perception of childhood as a temporary stage of life on the way to adulthood. This limitation has held across disciplines. However, in recent decades, scholars in disciplines such as history, cultural studies, literary studies, medieval studies, sociology, and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies have turned to efforts to recover the lived experiences of children as well as the cultures that construct the category of the child. We aim to bring attention to the ways in which children and youth have played a central role in music history and institutions, shaping while being shaped by them. Because music for, by, and about children and youth has been marginalized in various canons, we believe that centering their agency as music makers, students, performers, and audiences will further our understanding of music and of its cultural as well as historical significance.
The study group will foster the many types of inquiry available for the investigation of these intersecting aspects of music, children, and childhood. Scholarly approaches to music and childhood include, but are not limited to, archival research into primary sources, the study of music composed for or about children and youth, criticism which theorizes marginalized or disenfranchised groups, and interdisciplinary and cultural studies that incorporate research from other disciplines, including ethnography, which is the core research method of contemporary childhood studies. The members of the group are broadly representative of these approaches, including scholars who engage with ethnomusicology, music theory, and music education, as well as historical musicology. These methods shed light on previously overlooked materials, performances, and performers, including young musicians and composers and vast repertoires of music created for educational purposes. It is our belief that a Music and Childhood study group is timely, necessary, and sustainable as a forum to introduce curious scholars to a new sphere of musicological inquiry while providing a formal space for scholars engaged in the study of children’s culture in music to share ideas, new research, and creative solutions to shared problems.
Uploads
Papers by Ryan Bunch
Digital Projects by Ryan Bunch
The study group will foster the many types of inquiry available for the investigation of these intersecting aspects of music, children, and childhood. Scholarly approaches to music and childhood include, but are not limited to, archival research into primary sources, the study of music composed for or about children and youth, criticism which theorizes marginalized or disenfranchised groups, and interdisciplinary and cultural studies that incorporate research from other disciplines, including ethnography, which is the core research method of contemporary childhood studies. The members of the group are broadly representative of these approaches, including scholars who engage with ethnomusicology, music theory, and music education, as well as historical musicology. These methods shed light on previously overlooked materials, performances, and performers, including young musicians and composers and vast repertoires of music created for educational purposes. It is our belief that a Music and Childhood study group is timely, necessary, and sustainable as a forum to introduce curious scholars to a new sphere of musicological inquiry while providing a formal space for scholars engaged in the study of children’s culture in music to share ideas, new research, and creative solutions to shared problems.
The study group will foster the many types of inquiry available for the investigation of these intersecting aspects of music, children, and childhood. Scholarly approaches to music and childhood include, but are not limited to, archival research into primary sources, the study of music composed for or about children and youth, criticism which theorizes marginalized or disenfranchised groups, and interdisciplinary and cultural studies that incorporate research from other disciplines, including ethnography, which is the core research method of contemporary childhood studies. The members of the group are broadly representative of these approaches, including scholars who engage with ethnomusicology, music theory, and music education, as well as historical musicology. These methods shed light on previously overlooked materials, performances, and performers, including young musicians and composers and vast repertoires of music created for educational purposes. It is our belief that a Music and Childhood study group is timely, necessary, and sustainable as a forum to introduce curious scholars to a new sphere of musicological inquiry while providing a formal space for scholars engaged in the study of children’s culture in music to share ideas, new research, and creative solutions to shared problems.