George List and Colombian Musicology [abstract only]

Abstract

George List started his research interest in Colombia in the mid 1960s concentrating basically in the Afro-Colombian tradition of the northern coast. The materials gathered in his field trips led to several important publications and a sizable amount of field recordings now at the Archives of Traditional Music. His work -although not centered at the School of Music- developed simultaneously with the Latin American Music Center and very close to the music programs and initiatives oriented from the Music Division of the Organization of American States. In Colombia this was a very convulsive period, characterized by workers and student mobilizations and heated discussions on cultural imperialism, foreign military intervention, debates over armed struggle and the role of religion and academia in a polarized political agenda. Colombian musicology was trying to consolidate at the Conservatory of Music within the National University led by Andres Pardo Tovar and by 1964 was already entangled in the political discussion and the polarized intellectual and social climate that led to the emergence of the armed struggle and covered intelligence and indirect military US intervention. In this climate, after Pardo Tovar left the Conservatory, in the late 1960s major changes in the direction he tried to implement become apparent. This paper aims at assessing the impact that List and his work had in Colombian music research within the context described above.