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The Examiner and the Evangelist: Authorities of Music and Empire, c.1894

Johnson-Williams, Erin

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Authors



Abstract

In the 1890s, two musicians travelled between Britain and South Africa. One was the first examiner to travel abroad to examine for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, Franklin Taylor. At the same time as Taylor’s arrival in the Cape in 1894, a black South African composer, John Knox Bokwe, prepared to republish a tonic sol-fa hymnal containing many hymns that eventually became popular in Britain, to which Bokwe travelled multiple times. Although these narratives might appear to reflect highly divergent contexts for musical experience, the fluctuating constructions of imperial authority encountered in the careers of both these men link their stories together more deeply than their geographical and cultural disparities set them apart. The synchronous presentation of their stories in this article thus raises questions of how music emerged as a metaphor for constructions of imperial knowledge across shifting cultural boundaries.

Citation

Johnson-Williams, E. (2020). The Examiner and the Evangelist: Authorities of Music and Empire, c.1894. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 145(2), 317-350. https://doi.org/10.1017/rma.2020.16

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 15, 2019
Online Publication Date Nov 13, 2020
Publication Date Nov 30, 2020
Deposit Date Apr 3, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of the Royal Musical Association
Print ISSN 0269-0403
Electronic ISSN 1471-6933
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 145
Issue 2
Pages 317-350
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/rma.2020.16

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in Journal of the Royal Musical Association http://doi.org/10.1017/rma.2020.16. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Musical Association




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