Music and Media in Local Life: Music practice in a Newar neighbourhood in Nepal
Author: Ingemar Grandin
Category: Music   
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About  .

The Book

About the Book:

This books presents the musical life of the Newar town of Kirtipur, Nepal.
Newar musical traditions are prominent in the local musical life, and this heritage is presented in some detail in the book. Between the vivacious peaks of musical activity from the traditional ensembles, however, modern music from radios and cassette-players take over much of the town’s soundscape. So the role of the media in local musical life is the book’s second major theme. A third major theme is how the vibrant ethnic and political movements help shape the town’s musical activity.
With their rich and complex civilization, the Newars have given the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal much of its unique culture and cultural heritage. Music and media in local life was first published in 1989, and is still today the only study of Newar musical life in a full book format. This is the second, updated edition of the book.



About the Author:

Ingemar Grandin wrote his M.A. thesis on Nepali modern songs (a¯dhunik git) in 1984, and went on to do his Ph. D. fieldwork in Kirtipur in 1985-1988. He lived with his family in Lalitpur in the 1990s and returns regularly to the Kathmandu Valley.
The author is presently a senior lecturer at the Department for the Study of social change and culture at Linköping University, Sweden. He has investigated amateur music-making in Sweden and contributed to the study of transnationalism among ”white” people in the world outside the West. But research on Nepali music and musical life remains his primary commitment.

For further information, see the author’s website at www.aigrandin.se.