Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Vesperi, Maria

Keywords

Sarasota, Florida, Urban, Music, Performance, History

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

In this ethnography I examine the interactions between Sarasota's urban landscape and its “music scene,” a sphere of activities that are linked by their orientation around performance events featuring live music. My fieldwork focused on the experience of local musicians who write and perform original material. After Henri Lefebvre, musical culture is considered a simultaneously sonic, spatial, and social process that manifests in a series of event-based iterations. I attempt to trace a narrative that understands both recent history and current conflicts as a rhythmic interplay among images of the city, political institutions, economic webs, social networks, population movements, and musical forms. I conclude by relating live music to Sarasota's urban development and arguing for the benefits of supporting the original music scene.

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