Interpretive Labor : Experimental Music at Work

Why did so many musicians in the postwar era engage with experimental practices, and why do artists continue to do so today? What happens when we acknowledge the work that goes into performing this repertoire? What kind of work is it to be a contemporary musician, anyway? To address these questions, Interpretive Labor: Experimental Music at Work presents the theory of Interpretive Labor, or the creative work of interpretation. This book introduces and develops Interpretive Labor as grounded in a vast network of participants in new music between c. 1960 and the present, establishes several models of musical work, and explores the myriad connections between music and labor in the neoliberal present. © Oxford University Press