The Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American Music during the Cold War: Meeting Points of Music, Policy, and Philanthropy [abstract only]

Abstract

In the beginning of the 1960s the Rockefeller Foundation gave two grants for the study of Latin American music. Their aim was to help the creation of institutions that would provide a “sustaining environment in which cultural work may flourish.” The first grant was for the Centro de Altos Estudios Musicales at the Torcuato Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which under the leadership of Alberto Ginastera offered advanced training in musical composition. The second grant was given to Indiana University, Bloomington, “to establish the first center in the United States for the study and performance of Latin American music”1 under the direction of Juan Orrego-Salas. Major emphasis was to be put on the cooperation between both centers. Behind these two projects was John P. Harrison, Assistant Director for Humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation.

Studies on public and private support for the arts, often called the ‘economics of the arts,’ frequently fail to recognize the personal connections between the people formulating foreign policy, pushing forward specific corporate interests, and deploying resources through grants, endowments and donations. By looking at the Rockefeller Foundation’s project to create the CLAEM in Buenos Aires, and the LAMC in Indiana University, I show the crucial role of Harrison, and the way particular individuals reshaped with their actions both foreign aid and development funds for the arts.