Landscapes of Music: The more-than-human lives and politics of musical instruments

The landscapes surrounding the German violin-making town of Mittenwald have been strongly shaped by and for the making of bowed string instruments. Over centuries, trees have been cultivated here, whose wood has particularly potent resonating qualities. Resultingly, rare cultural landscapes have developed alongside a prominent violin building heritage. Through colonization and the import of tropical woods for bow-making, however, violin making has also become linked to threatened Brazilian forests. Situated within the fields of environmental musicology and anthropology, my research will investigate these musical landscapes, and the multispecies relations and politics that surround the making of instruments.