Mohindar Brar Sambhi Lecture Series on Indian Music

Lecture by Peter Kvetko,“Sunoh!: An Ethnographic History of Non-Film Popular Music in Mumbai.” 

Abstract: While Bollywood may dominate the public imagination about music in Mumbai, the city’s film music industry has always co-existed with other popular music scenes. This presentation explores the relationship between film and non-film popular music in Mumbai, with special emphasis on the emergence of Indipop in the 1990s. As postcolonial Bombay was reshaped into millennial Mumbai and the Indian economy underwent a shift toward neoliberal policies, new orientations emerged toward the notions of public and private. Particularly evident amongst urban, cosmopolitan classes, these shifting orientations correspond to transformations within the field of Hindi-language popular music. Through sonic, visual, and lyrical gestures, the emergent field of Indipop music has offered both an alternative to Bollywood and, at the same time, an inspiration to transform the sound of contemporary film music. Combining elements of participant-observation fieldwork, media analysis, and ethnographic fiction, this presentation offers a study of musical globalization and a reflection on the profound yet uneven expansion of consumerism in India today.

Peter Kvetko has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas-Austin. His primary research concerns the relationship between popular music and globalization in urban North India. He is an assistant professor of music at Salem State University in Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in ethnomusicology and directs a student ensemble that performs music from India and Zimbabwe. He also regularly performs traditional Indonesian music as part of the Boston Village Gamelan.

1pm – Room 1344, Schoenberg Music Building

Open to the public and free of charge
Parking in Lot 2 — $11 (Hilgard and Westholme)
Information: (310) 825-5947

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The Mohindar Brar Sambhi Lecture Series on Indian Music presents a variety of lectures focusing on research and other issues important in the fields of ethnomusicology and Indian music.