Gathas

FOREWORDS
Timothy Rice, in his article on the concept of “identity”, which has been increasingly taking place in all social science studies since the 1980s, and the orientation towards its studies, focused specifically on ethnomusicology and
questioned the reasons for this increase. The author initially stated that the concept of identity was present in the literature of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and philosophy as a tool of psycho-social analysis in the early 1960s. In ethnomusicology studies, beyond ethnic, national, gender and social class-based identity studies, shaping of identity-specific elements in living spaces is a separate area of focus as Rice states. Music and dance, which are the abstract and concrete formative elements of the living space in question, shape identities as well as forming them. The formation process of the book Timbres of Identity: Ethnomusicological approaches to Music-Dance and Identity, which is the idea we set out with, started about a year ago, following the International Ethnomusicology Symposium (hybrid), under titled Music- Dance and Identity: Timbres of Danube. However, ahead of the symposium we had included many sub-titles in our music-dance and identity-oriented symposium call, which we, as the Association of Ethnomusicology/TURKEY, decided with the support of the Istanbul Hungarian Cultural Center. The symposium we conducted online and in Bursa /Turkey started with the concert of Uludağ University State Conservatory Youth Symphony Orchestra string instruments group under the direction of conductor Dağhan Doğu that played “Tuna’da Bir Uğurböceği (A Ladybug in the Danube)” composed by Oğuzhab Balcı for  the symposium. After the symposium, which was streamed live on all social media accounts of the Ethnomusicology Association for three days, the collective book “Identity of Music: Ideology, Ethnography, Popular Culture”  was published in Turkish by Doğu Publishing House on September 2001. This book, on the other hand, including Ethnomusicology as Science Versus Ethnomusicology as Humanity chapter that was also one of the symposium keynotes by Helen Myers at the same symposium is published in English by the Association of Ethnomusicology Publishing.
Following another of the symposium keynotes, How Essential is Music Researche Today?, presented by Gisa Jachnigen and written separately for the book, Daith Kearney penned his fieldwork titled Forging the Dance: The Expression of Regional Identity in Irish Folk Theatre. In addition to article by Nick Poulakis titled Greek Music and Dance: Performing Identities Through Cinema, Saman Panapitiya introduced another exemplary work on the tones of identity with his article titled
Folk Arts Associated with Agro-Lifestyle and Performing Arts of Today in Sri Lanka. Shan Du wrote The Gatha of the Nava Durg-a Between Divine  and Human Roles section, while Meruyert Berdikul discuss examples of the reflections of music politics in the formation of musical identity with the article titled Postcolonial Discourse of Studying the Song Culture of Kazakhs of the XX. Century and Özgecan Karadağlı with the article titled  Identity and Music: Saygun’s Yunus Emre Oratorio. Finally, the only article in the book that was not presented at the symposium, Georgian People on the Boundaries via Music and Dance: Artvin-Maçahel/TURKEY, was written by me. Hope to contribute to readers and the field. Prof. Dr. Özlem DOĞUŞ VARLI