Cultural Heritage and Improvised Music in European Festivals (CHIME)

CHIME explored the uses and re-uses of different types of heritage through the study of jazz and improvised music festivals, and examined how changing relationships between music, festivals, and cultural heritage sites can renegotiate established understandings and uses of heritage.

Researchers

Professor Tony Whyton
Professor Nicholas Gebhardt
Professor Beth Perry (University of Sheffield)
Professor George McKay (University of East Anglia)
Professor Helene Brembeck (University of Gothenberg, Sweden)
Professor Walter van de Leur (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Dr Loes Rusch (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Dr Marlieke Wilders (University of Groningen, Netherlands)

Research background

Cultural Heritage and Improvised Music in European Festivals (CHIME) was a European research project supported by the JPI Heritage Plus programme. The project was developed following a thematic call for Transnational research projects.

Research aims

Our core focus on festivals reflected the important – if undervalued – position that festivals occupy in Europe’s cultural ecology, with their dynamic and synergetic relationship to spaces and cultural sites. We used jazz and improvised music as a lens through which to explore key issues in heritage research, and explored the music’s unique and complex relationship to concepts of high and low culture, tradition, innovation, authenticity and (non)-European identity.

CHIME focused on three thematic work packages: Improvising Heritage: jazz, festivals and heritage sites (UK); Marketising Heritage: jazz in urban spaces (Sweden); and Sounding Heritage: jazz festival landscapes in the Netherlands (The Netherlands).

Objectives include:

To explore the uses and re-uses of cultural heritage through jazz and improvised music festivals;
To investigate the iterative relationship between festivals and heritage, examining the synergies and frictions between different forms of cultural heritage;
To interrogate the relationship between music and place, considering the impact of jazz as heritage and through heritage;
To develop a typology of festivals and heritage sites, drawing on case studies from different European contexts;
To use festivals to examine the boundaries between tangible, intangible and digital heritage, devising digital tools that will be of direct benefit to festivals and policy makers;
To investigate interrelated research themes using cross-disciplinary methods, to develop new approaches to the sustainable use and management of cultural heritage;
To further international festivals and heritage studies research by establishing a high impact programme of Knowledge Exchange and co-production activities, working in partnership with our Associated Partners.

How has the research been carried out?

To explore the uses and re-uses of cultural heritage through jazz and improvised music festivals. The project team drew on ethnographic work, fieldwork, and interviews to explore the uses and reuses of cultural heritage. National case studies in Sweden and the Netherlands were contrasted with a pan-European examination of festivals and cultural heritage.

To investigate the iterative relationship between festivals and heritage, examining the synergies and frictions between different forms of cultural heritage. Fieldwork at contrasting festival sites explored the synergies and frictions between different forms of cultural heritage. This included the balance between conservation as well as the balance between top-down and bottom-up formations of heritage.

To interrogate the relationship between music and place, considering the impact of jazz as heritage and through heritage. Our festival studies examined the relationship between music and space through different disciplinary lenses, including critical heritage studies research. The historical research work undertaken also examined jazz as heritage music and how the music’s meaning has changed over time and according to context.

To develop a typology of festivals and heritage sites, drawing on case studies from different European contexts. A typology was developed and will be published as part of the IHJS special issue. Festivals examined ranged from the Sarajevo Jazz Festival, which emerged after the Bosnian war to Molde International Jazz Festival in Norway. The festivals typology also informed the development of the successful CHIME Hack Day creative programming workshop at the 2018 Cheltenham Jazz Festival.

To use festivals to examine the boundaries between tangible, intangible and digital heritage, devising digital tools that will be of direct benefit to festivals and policy makers. A CHIME app was developed in partnership with Associated partners and piloted at the Cheltenham and GMLSTN festivals. 2 versions of the app were developed as part of the CHIME project.

To investigate interrelated research themes using cross-disciplinary methods, to develop new approaches to the sustainable use and management of cultural heritage

Our special IHJS issue on CHIME and the report on Festivals as Integrative Sites highlights different approaches to the sustainable use and management of cultural heritage. Project case studies also draw on cross-disciplinary methods to provide contrasting accounts of different approaches to management and sustainable uses of cultural heritage.

To further international festivals and heritage studies research by establishing a high impact programme of Knowledge Exchange and co-production activities, working in partnership with our Associated Partners. Activities included Hack Day events delivered in partnership with Associated Partners GMLSTN Festival, Zomer Jazz Fiets Tour and Cheltenham Jazz Festival, the establishment of a Grow Your Own Festival with MAC Birmingham, contributions to the Europe Jazz Network ‘Strength in Numbers II’ report and the establishment of an EJN research group, and research consultation events in partnership with AP’s MISTRA, Kultur i Vast and the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Intended outcomes

Case studies and reports will inform policy around festivals and provide models for arts’ engagement with cultural heritage. CHIME has developed a typology of festivals and cultural heritage alongside a study of festivals as integrative sites that will be of interest to the broader cultural sector.

The Travelling Exhibition will be of widespread use to Dutch festival-goers and has already been disseminated at a range of national and international events. The Grow Your Own Festival is now an annual event and will have a significant impact on the multi-cultural arts scene of Birmingham. Work on the CHIME App revealed a lot of data about the mediation of festivals in digital space. This tool has the potential to be used by large audiences at multiple festival sites and the project team is currently exploring a final stage of development to bring this to market. The project has also produced models of Knowledge Exchange and public engagement that have a broader benefit to the arts and humanities. During the development process the CHIME App, for example, the project team devised a Hack Day workshop format for data analysts that was subsequently used for creative programme development at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival.

The project team also developed an info-graphic to chart the impact of the project over time. Scholarly outputs include a new monograph series based around jazz festivals and cultural heritage with Routledge, a special issue of the International Journal of Heritage Studies, several book chapters and monographs, and a 5-volume Oxford History of Jazz in Europe. The CHIME project will have a lasting impact on academic scholarship in jazz and cultural heritage and has opened up the field to interdisciplinary scholarship and new avenues of enquiry.