Not Singing in Tune: The Hor 29 Novembar Choir and the Invention of a Translocal Do-It-Yourself Popular Music Heritage in Austria

Abstract

This article sets out to deepen our understanding of do-it-yourself (DIY) music heritages by focusing on Hor 29 Novembar, an activist choir based in Vienna, Austria, that uses songs to engage with issues of migration, national identity, popular music history, and contemporary society in Austria. The article's empirical sections are based on interviews with choir members, group discussions with the choir, and participant observations at rehearsals and public appearances, complemented by the analysis of Hor 29 Novembar's website. Drawing on recent studies on popular music heritage, the article explores three aspects of the DIY music heritage created by Hor 29 Novembar: 1) the choir's collective cultural identity rooted in the DIY politics and migrant self-organization; 2) commemoration practices that highlight the histories of migration to Austria from the former Yugoslavia since the 1960s and the cultural and political activities of migrants living in Austria; 3) the choir's musical repertoire, which challenges both Austria's national cultural heritage and the dominant political and media representations of migrants. The article suggests that Hor 29 Novembar represents a politically engaged popular music heritage which combines a critique of geographically fixed understandings of culture and racially confined notions of national heritage with raising the visibility of the migrants' cultural past, and popular music past in particular, while fostering a dialogue between different generations of migrants in Austria.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Manuela Schreibmaier and Anthony Auerbach for valuable discussions during the preparation of this article. In addition, I am grateful for the suggestions made by both anonymous peer reviewers and by the editors Andy Bennett and Susanne Janssen. This research has been supported as part of the “Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory and Cultural Identity” (POPID) project by the HERA Joint Research Programme (www.heranet.info), which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, DASTI, ETF, FNR, FWF, HAZU, IRCHSS, MHEST, NWO, RANNIS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007– 13, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^[1]Finn emphasizes the importance of “post-identities” in relation to independent and community-led archives.

^[2]Baker and Huber explore affective investments of volunteers involved in the preservation of popular music at music archives.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosa Reitsamer

Rosa Reitsamer is assistant professor in the Department of Music Sociology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. She is author of the book Die Do-it-yourself-Karrieren der DJs: Über die Arbeit in elektronischen Musikszenen (2013, Transcript) and has co-edited the book New Feminism: Worlds of Feminism, Queer and Networking Conditions (2008, Loecker). She is an editorial member of the Austrian Society of Sociology.