Performance Identity

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the topic of music performer identity, exploring three contemporary categories of performer: famous soloists in western classical music and popular music traditions, music ensemble players from the two traditions, and amateurs taking part in community music activities. This particular coverage permits investigation of the ways in which personal characteristics and social frameworks entwine with the music and today’s performance contexts. The chapter is situated in a social constructionist view that our selfhood emerges through the systems available to us in our social and cultural milieu in relation to the roles we enact such as parenting, or as in this chapter’s topi..