On November 20th (Saturday) at 5pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books, and Yana Stainova – researcher + assistant professor of Anthropology at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON) – for the launch of her first book, “Sonorous Worlds – Musical Enchantment in Venezuela” (2021, University of Michigan Press).  Copies of the book will be sold at the occasion.

The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.

Registration is free, and mandatory.

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Covid update: Due to the latest recommendations from the BC Health Authority, all guests attending in-person events at Massy Arts require double-vaccination and must wear a mask.

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CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

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The book

Why have thousands of Venezuelan youth and their families chosen to invest their desires in classical music? Yana Stainova’s book Sonorous Worlds is based on 16 months of ethnographic research with musicians from Venezuela’s classical music program El Sistema. The state-funded initiative provides free classical music education and instruments to almost a million young people all over the country. The book looks at how these young people engage with what the author calls “enchantment,” that is, how through musical practices they create worlds that escape, rupture, and critique dominant structures of power. Stainova’s focus on artistic practice and enchantment allows her to theorize the successes and failures of political projects through the lens of the everyday transformations in people’s lives.

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The Author

Yana Stainova is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University. She is interested in art, urban poverty, social inequality, migration, and the lived experience of violence in Latin America.

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