Sarah Elizabeth Tomlinson, Ph.D. 2020

Advisor: Chérie Ndaliko

Dissertation Title: Representing Classical Music to Children and Young People in the United States: Critical Histories and New Approaches

Find it in the library here.

Dissertation Abstract:

In this dissertation, I analyze the history and current practice of classical music programming for youth audiences in the United States. My examination of influential historical programs, including NBC radio’s 1928-42 Music Appreciation Hour and CBS television’s 1958-72 Young People’s Concerts, as well as contemporary materials including children’s visual media and North Carolina Symphony Education Concerts from 2017-19, show how dominant representations of classical music curated for children systemically erase women and composersof-color’s contributions and/or do not contextualize their marginalization. I also intervene in how classical music is represented to children and young people. From 2017 to 2019, I conducted participatory research at the Global Scholars Academy (GSA), a K-8 public charter school in Durham, NC, to generate new curricula and materials fostering critical engagement with classical music and music history. Stemming from the participatory research principle of situating community collaborators as co-producers of knowledge, conducting participatory research with children urged me to prioritize children’s perspectives throughout this project. As such, I have examined archival documents written by young people, interviewed young people, and adjusted curricula around GSA students’ concerns. 

I have also sought to analyze disciplinary divisions and suggest more interdisciplinary collaboration between musicology and music education. The critical tools for making children’s introductions to classical music more diverse and critically engaged exist, as shown by established scholarship in these two disciplines. However, musicologists and music education scholars have responded to their frustrations about the Eurocentricity, assumed whiteness, and masculinist values of the classical music canon in contrasting ways. Moreover, community-based projects and resources seeking to address canonic biases have yet to make large impacts on the common practice of how children are first introduced to classical music or be documented in scholarship. 

I argue that, by asking children and young people how representations of classical music are meaningful to them and by urging interdisciplinary collaboration between musicology and music education and, scholars can reimagine, revise, and represent classical music as inclusive and critically engaged. I evidence this argument through criticism of past and present programs as well as participating in the creation of new approaches. 

Dr. Tomlinson was heavily involved in the formation of the American Musicological Society’s Childhood and Youth Study Group in 2018. She has published on the Library of Congress’ website, as discussed in this feature on the Department website.