Description: Swedish Folk Music in the Twenty-First Century: On the Nature of Tradition in a Folkless Nation, by David Kaminsky, examines the struggle of present-day Swedish folk musicians and dancers to maintain the cultural currency of their genre while simultaneously challenging the his...
Review Quotes:
"This slender volume is a probing, elegantly written assessment of a more tightly circumscribed topic than the author advertises with the book's title. . . .Kaminsky, a fine flutist and respected performer of Swedish folk melodies, is well equipped to discuss music as sound and practice." --Journal of American Folklore
"Kaminsky's book is a valuable work, not least because it both clarifies and problematises many current issues . . . He has managed to both capture the many nuances and to present the study in a manageable structure, where some basic questions continually generate new approaches and expressions. . . .Swedish Folk Music in the Twenty-first Century could serve as a model for ethnomusicological studies in other fields and genres. Kaminsky's analysis of the concept of folk music and of practical music-making, combined with an historical overview, bring new and important insights into the understanding of Swedish folk music." --Ethnomusicology Forum "This is an excellent study by an outsider-insider of what folk music means today and how it is used in contemporary Sweden. It gives a sound discussion of the four elements - Tradition, Nation, Folk, Nature - that in a complicated way interrelate, and traditionally have answered, now as before, to practitioners' and listeners' different motives and needs. Kaminsky leaves few stones unturned; almost every possible angle on this subject is dealt with in lucid overviews, explaining longer trends, as well as detailed discussions. I consider myself to be an informed Swedish musician and musicologist, but I really learned a lot. This ethnomusicological book is an impressive and fresh undertaking, wide-ranging and written in plain language." --Olle Edström, University of Gothenburg "Being both an outsider and an insider, Kaminsky presents a multifaceted account of the contemporary Swedish folk music scene and its historical background." --Krister Malm