Research Catalog

Ask the experts : how Ford, Rockefeller, and the NEA changed American music

Title: Ask the experts : how Ford, Rockefeller, and the NEA changed American music / Michael Sy Uy.
Author: Uy, Michael Sy
Publication: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JNE 21-72	Performing Arts Research Collections - Music

Details

Description

xii, 263 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm

Summary

"From the end of the Second World War through the U.S. Bicentennial, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation granted close to $300 million (approximately $2.3 billion in 2017 dollars) in the field of music alone. In deciding what to fund, these three grantmaking institutions decided to "ask the experts," adopting seemingly objective, scientific models of peer review and specialist evaluation. They recruited music composers at elite institutions, professors from prestigious universities, and leaders of performing arts organizations. Among the most influential expert-consultants were Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Milton Babbitt. The significance was two-fold: not only were male, Western art composers put in charge of directing large and unprecedented channels of public and private funds, but in doing so they also determined and defined what was meant by artistic excellence. They decided the fate of their peers and shaped the direction of music-making in this country. By asking the experts, the grantmaking institutions produced a concentrated and interconnected field of artists and musicians. Officers and directors utilized ostensibly objective financial tools like matching grants and endowments in an attempt to diversify and stabilize applicants' sources of funding, as well as the number of applicants they funded. Such economics-based strategies, however, relied more on personal connections among the wealthy and elite, rather than local community citizens. Ultimately, this history demonstrates how "expertise" served as an exclusionary form of cultural and social capital that prevented racial minorities and non-dominant groups from fully participating"--

Subject

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-251) and index.

Contents

Who Were the Experts? Defining Excellence, Quality, and Style : Consultants as Contributory Experts ; Gatekeeping from Within : Grantmaking Officers as Interactional Experts ; Pluralism and Public-Private Relationships in the Field of Cultural Production -- Experts in Action. Rockefeller Foundation, the University New Music Center, and "Foundation Music" ; The Ford Foundation, Matching Grants, and Endowment Building ; The National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Bicentennial, and the Expansion Arts and Jazz-Folk-Ethnic Programs.

Call Number

JNE 21-72

ISBN

9780197510445
0197510442
9780197510452 (canceled/invalid)
9780197510469 (canceled/invalid)
9780197510476 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2020008327

OCLC

1145106189

Author

Uy, Michael Sy, author.

Title

Ask the experts : how Ford, Rockefeller, and the NEA changed American music / Michael Sy Uy.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-251) and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Other Form:

Online version: Uy, Michael Sy, Ask the experts [1.] New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. 9780197510452 (DLC) 2020008328

Research Call Number

JNE 21-72

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