O coro cênico da Universidade da Amazônia: experienciando uma identidade a partir de um repertório musical

Abstract

The main goal of this research was to investigate the experience of building an “identity” from a musical repertoire of the Universidade da Amazônia’s Coro Cênico, which led to the production of the CD series “Trilhas D'Água”, consisting of a musical repertoire retelling the Amazon musical universe in the language of choral singing. The following issues are addressed: how the change in musical repertoire contributed to the construction of the group’s "identity"; the changes observed in the chorists about the thinking, behavior and the generated sound itself; the academic community that mantains it, as well as the cultural context in which this group is inserted. The dissertation is structured in three sections. The first presents a contextualized biography of Coro Cênico da UNAMA; the second describes the group’s teaching and learning process, and the musical practice is analyzed in the third, considering the social sphere in which the group operates. Bibliographical sources about musical change and identity in the light of ethnomusicology are used . Data about choir practice available in blogs and sites were collected. Moreover, "semi-structured" and "episodic" interviews with the academic community, students from the group, rector and dean of the institution, composers and conductor were done, considering the oral history retold by the agents that build and perform musical practice at the university somehow . It starts from the principle that these agents are the people who hold the basis and conceptions of what the musical practice at the University of Amazonia is about.