Why is classical music predominantly the preserve of the white middle classes? Contemporary associations between classical music and social class remain under explored, with classical music primarily studied as a text rather than as a practice until recent years. Anna Bull outlines a new approach for a socio-cultural analysis of classical music, asking how musical institutions, practices, and aesthetics are shaped by wider conditions of economic inequality, and how music might enable and entrench such inequalities or work against them.
Image courtesy of interviewee
