"Uma banda aqui e outra lá no céu": etnografia das bandas de música de Nova Lima/MG a partir da atuação dos regentes

Abstract

The sentence “a band here and another in heaven” synthesizes what the trajectory of this research allowed to highlight about the participation of the characters who conducted and still conduct the wind bands in Nova Lima/MG. The research was developed based on the desire to carry out an ethnography attentive to what composes the performance of the conductors of the bands Corporação Musical Sagrado Coração de Jesus (1896), Corporação Musical União Operária (1915) and Sociedade Musical Santa Efigênia (1932). Ethnomusicology proceeded as a discipline guiding the methodological actions and look of this researcher in the field. Supported in links with the fields of ethnography (SÁEZ, 2013 and BRANDÃO 2007), multisited research (MARCUS, 2001) and memory (BOSI, 1994 and THOMPSON, 2006), I carried out the fieldwork over seventeen months, including the monitoring and observation in different situations of musical practice, the participation as a saxophonist in band activities and conducting interviews with interlocutors who maintain some degree of relationship with these corporations. At the end of the path, the existence and maintenance of a “conducting system” was highlighted, supported by a link with characters from the past and in the way of acting and “being a conductor in Nova Lima". At the same time, the figure of the conductor proved to be a privileged gateway to discuss several issues connected to musical experiences in a city historically marked by social inequality.