Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory
An innovative and much-needed critical work on music and memorialization in relation to AIDS, 9/11, and anti-Black violence in America

Music has long served as a powerful medium for communal mourning and remembrance in times of crisis. Audible Loss examines musical responses to three major crises in US society at the turn of the twenty-first century: the AIDS epidemic, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ongoing conditions of anti-Black violence.

Analyzing a range of works written to commemorate these losses, Andrea Zarafshon Moore explores how contemporary classical music (aka “new music”) frames and narrates these crises, gives voice to grief, imagines other possibilities, and makes loss audible. These crises are read alongside one another to reveal the ways they are mutually imbricated, while also recognizing the sheer commemorative dominance of 9/11 in this century. Attending to broader debates and discourses through which commemoration is always filtered and the ways interpretive consensus has been sought and articulated in both musical and other memorial forms, Moore probes the conventional claims of commemoration, particularly those for the necessity of remembrance to “healing” and the prevention of future crises.

Audible Loss concludes by reflecting on the limits of existing commemorative forms and the possibility, even necessity, of new ones. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, it proposes that while memorials of all kinds may provide outlets for collective remembrance and even mourning, their power to forge a sense of collectivity is diminished as public discourse grows more fragmented. Deeply informed yet highly approachable, Audible Loss is a major contribution to the fields of music and memory studies and essential reading for anyone interested in memory culture in the United States today.

1144848099
Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory
An innovative and much-needed critical work on music and memorialization in relation to AIDS, 9/11, and anti-Black violence in America

Music has long served as a powerful medium for communal mourning and remembrance in times of crisis. Audible Loss examines musical responses to three major crises in US society at the turn of the twenty-first century: the AIDS epidemic, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ongoing conditions of anti-Black violence.

Analyzing a range of works written to commemorate these losses, Andrea Zarafshon Moore explores how contemporary classical music (aka “new music”) frames and narrates these crises, gives voice to grief, imagines other possibilities, and makes loss audible. These crises are read alongside one another to reveal the ways they are mutually imbricated, while also recognizing the sheer commemorative dominance of 9/11 in this century. Attending to broader debates and discourses through which commemoration is always filtered and the ways interpretive consensus has been sought and articulated in both musical and other memorial forms, Moore probes the conventional claims of commemoration, particularly those for the necessity of remembrance to “healing” and the prevention of future crises.

Audible Loss concludes by reflecting on the limits of existing commemorative forms and the possibility, even necessity, of new ones. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, it proposes that while memorials of all kinds may provide outlets for collective remembrance and even mourning, their power to forge a sense of collectivity is diminished as public discourse grows more fragmented. Deeply informed yet highly approachable, Audible Loss is a major contribution to the fields of music and memory studies and essential reading for anyone interested in memory culture in the United States today.

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Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory

Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory

by Andrea Zarafshon Moore
Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory

Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory

by Andrea Zarafshon Moore

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Overview

An innovative and much-needed critical work on music and memorialization in relation to AIDS, 9/11, and anti-Black violence in America

Music has long served as a powerful medium for communal mourning and remembrance in times of crisis. Audible Loss examines musical responses to three major crises in US society at the turn of the twenty-first century: the AIDS epidemic, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ongoing conditions of anti-Black violence.

Analyzing a range of works written to commemorate these losses, Andrea Zarafshon Moore explores how contemporary classical music (aka “new music”) frames and narrates these crises, gives voice to grief, imagines other possibilities, and makes loss audible. These crises are read alongside one another to reveal the ways they are mutually imbricated, while also recognizing the sheer commemorative dominance of 9/11 in this century. Attending to broader debates and discourses through which commemoration is always filtered and the ways interpretive consensus has been sought and articulated in both musical and other memorial forms, Moore probes the conventional claims of commemoration, particularly those for the necessity of remembrance to “healing” and the prevention of future crises.

Audible Loss concludes by reflecting on the limits of existing commemorative forms and the possibility, even necessity, of new ones. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, it proposes that while memorials of all kinds may provide outlets for collective remembrance and even mourning, their power to forge a sense of collectivity is diminished as public discourse grows more fragmented. Deeply informed yet highly approachable, Audible Loss is a major contribution to the fields of music and memory studies and essential reading for anyone interested in memory culture in the United States today.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781531508692
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication date: 04/01/2025
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Andrea Zarafshon Moore is Assistant Professor of Music at Smith College.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Music, Crisis, Memory | 1

1. Absent Names, Present Lives: Art Song as Intimate Memory | 25

2. Sounding Witness: Musical Testimony and Memorial Stakes | 59

3. Loss Without Words: Musical Memory Beyond the Discourse | 91

4. Envisioning the Present: Music as Speculative Imagination | 122

Epilogue: All the Trembling Bells | 153

Acknowledgments | 171

Notes | 173

Bibliography | 193

Index | 217

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