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I am completing a book manuscript that studies the history of the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM, 1962-1971) as a meeting point for local and transnational philanthropy, the framing of pan-regional discourses of Latin Americanism, and the aesthetics and desires of high modernity. The Center was organized by Alberto Ginastera with funding provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and the local Di Tella family, and offered two-year fellowships to young Latin American composers for intensive dedicated study with local, North American and European figures such as Messiaen, Copland, Xenakis, Malipiero, de Pablo, and Nono.
This project focuses on the role of avant-garde music in the creation, consolidation, and deployment of influence of different social groups often identified as elites both in Argentina and the United States. I show how by following, consuming, and rearticulating international avant-garde musical models, the members of this art world—as patrons, composers, critics and listeners—engaged in a hegemonic process that resulted in the legitimization of new local elites, the institutionalization of avant-garde music in Argentina, and the consolidation of solidarity networks among composers from many Latin American countries. The book addresses three key questions. First, how was the musical avant-garde articulated in Latin America, and in which ways did it respond or not to theories of avant-garde movements and high modernity in the rest of the world? Second, how were composers during the 1960s engaging with discourses of Latin Americanism as professional strategy, identification marker and musical style? Third, how and why were cultural diplomacy and philanthropy in the United States and in Argentina working hand in hand towards the support of avant-garde music in Latin America, and how was this part of the legitimation and construction of elite status and identity?
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