EU and peripheral cultural (musical) politices and policies

EU and peripheral cultural (musical) politices and policies A proposal for a doctoral thesis (draft b, spring 2004)
 Basis for international referee article/articles, some of the following themes would be discussed:

Special characteristics of the cultural politics in Lapland (as a case of peripheral/local but internationally acclaimed cultural institutions)
 centralised but de-centralising
 what is the political motive of localised cultural politics? Education?
 why does the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland play in primary school halls?
 compare with the cultural politics in Sweden, Norway

EU and periphery politics
 e.g. the Eurovision song contest: new countries (or peripheries), like Latvia, have been shown some cultural/political sympathy
 new member countries in the EU; some of them are traditional musical centres, but politically/economically quite peripheral in the European context
Theories of peripheries
 orchestras/other musical institutions in other peripheral European areas
 traditional centres with a national tradition and symphonic composers of their own: Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Prague Philharmonic, the London Orchestras
 have been challenged with progressive programming choices lately
 centres with no strong orchestral tradition: Paris, Italy (opera instead)
 semi-peripheries (or peripheries of the centres): Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Schleswig-Holstein, local BBC orchestras (Scottish orchestra plays lots of local music)
 new musical centres, or new semi-peripheries with a tradition of their own: Toulouse
 peripheries: Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg, Oslo, Iceland
 traditional peripheries: Barcelona, Oulu, Jyväskylä
 peri-peripheries: Lohja, Kuhmo, other local orchestras in Finland, Umeå, Bergen
 peri-peripheries: local orchestras with a profile of their own: Vantaa, Rovaniemi. Do they have a special local mission or are they nationally/internationally orientated?
 new peripheries: Petroskoi, Archangel
 new peripheries/old centres: Prague, Budapest, Warsaw

Why is it advantageous to show up as a patron of culture (or sports)?
 Ilkka Kanerva, Tanja Karpela, Matti Ahde, Suvi Lindén, Silvio Berlusconi comp. with Lennart Meri, Vaclav Havel

Music sociology: the traditions from musicology or sociology. Musicological tradition has as its starting point the institutions of music making, sociology is mostly concentrated in audience research.
 Sociology of music: is here established

Programming policies
 theories of postmodernism; crossover
 choice of what is being performed; decided by whom, which are the motives?

Political will:
 why is music considered to be of central importance in Finland (not other arts); the national myth of “Sauna, sisu, Sibelius”
 since 1960s music institutions, conservatories have expanded in Finland but also elsewhere
 the general professional level and quantity of musicians has expanded
 new generation of conservatory-raised musicians have occupied the local orchestras
 the musical standard of local orchestras has improved considerably
 little later: more local orchestras have been founded