The papers in this interdisciplinary volume explore the theme of music and identity from the perspectives of ethnomusicology, musicology, sociology, performance and music therapy in case studies employing approaches focused through the specific lenses of nation, race, religion, gender, diaspora, and health. The contents are organized in two sections. The first section critiques various ways in which the music of Edvard Grieg has been appropriated in projects of national identity construction in Norway. This perspective is extended beyond Norway in the second section into studies of racial, religious and diasporic musical identities. The premise that identity is not an essence carried within people's bodies or within musical sounds constitutes a common point of departure for the argument that identity is instead socially, historically and culturally imagined, constructed, performed, experienced, contested and negotiated. The contributors draw on a wide range of contemporary social and cultural theory, with a particular emphasis on postcolonial theory, in explorations of the ways in which music serves as a powerful resource for identity work and the means by which people attribute meaning to musical sounds in particular cultural and historical contexts. Thomas Solomon is Associate Professor (ethnomusicology) at the Grieg Academy ? Department of Music at the University of Bergen.
