The Search for a Post-Colonial Identity as Expressed in the Composition and Arrangement of Jamaican Choral Music

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/nv9354525

Abstract

As a former colony of Great Britain, the retention of colonial ideals has permeated many aspects of Jamaican culture, including music and music education. Having been granted independence in August of 1962, the 1970s ushered in a major shift in the country’s shared cultural identity. Marcus Mosiah Garvey is a national hero of Jamaica, and so his teachings, Caribbean creolization, and the Black Power movement became central to the development of an Afro-Caribbean, and further Jamaican, cultural identity. This paper examines the development of the Jamaican choral music genre through an exploration of Jamaican folk forms and the Jamaican language that are integrated into the Jamaican choral music repertory. The study further investigates the colonial and musical history of the country that led to the composition of this music that reflects the lived experiences of its people, incorporating interviews from composers within the genre.

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