“World Music” and the Commodification of Religious Experience: Professor Steve Feld of the University of New Mexico will explore what happens when sacred music is drawn into the expanding world market through three contested cases: (1) the “Qu’ran” track on theMy Life in the Bush of Ghosts CD in the 80s, (2) Tibetan recordings by/with rock stars and their relationship with the explosion of Gregorian Chant music in the 90s, (3) the popularization of Appalachian “old time religion” recordings after 9/11. The lecture is tonight, Thursday the 16th, at 6 pm at 721 Broadway, 12th floor, Dean’s Conference Room at New York University.

Read More:

VOXLOX: a documentary sound art advocates for humanrights and acoustic ecology. Our human rights recordings present exile, refugee, diasporic, and indigenous voices muted or censored by mainstream media. Our acoustic ecology recordings present uniquely marginal, forgotten, endangered, and rapidly changing sound environments.

Bosavi: Rainforest Music from Papua New Guinea. A site linked to the 3-CD set Feld produced, a treasure trove of recordings made over a 25 year period among several indigenous villages around Mount Bosavi in Papua New Guinea. The discs chronicle the changing cultural context within which the local people join in the “lift-up-over sounding” of the forest’s voice. Proceeds go to the Bosavi People’s Fund.