Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
Use the "Filter by Track or Type of Session" or "Filter by Session Topic" dropdown to limit results by type. Some of the sessions are also color-coded: purple indicates performances, grey indicates paper forums, and orange indicates sessions which have been organized by one of the regional associations of IMS (ARLAC or IMSEA). (Sessions which are both IMS sessions and performances are only colored orange.)
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:59:08am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Cross-Cultural Exchange Session Chair: Bess Xintong Liu, Indiana University Bloomington | |
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Exotic Bach: Orientalist Fantasy and the Eroticization of Bach in Brazilian Funk Independent Researcher, Brazil This paper argues that MC Fioti’s 2017 Brazilian funk hit “Bum Bum Tam Tam,” which samples J. S. Bach’s Partita in A minor for solo flute (BWV 1013), reconfigures Bach through eroticism and Orientalist fantasy, revealing how the Western classical canon is perceived and resignified within a contemporary Global South context. By examining both the musical adaptation of the Partita and the narrative of the music video, I demonstrate how the exoticist approach in the video reveals a distance between Brazilian funk consumers and the work of Bach, and how this process of eroticization makes Bach’s piece more accessible to this demographic. The song’s ostinato is constructed from five measures of the Allemande, transposed and recombined into a hypnotic, trance-inducing loop. Through repetition, emphasis on minor seconds and the tritone, and the harmonic minor inflection, the sample acquires a “mysterious” quality that sets the tone of the video’s “Arabic-like” fantasy. Using the concept of Orientalism, I analyze how the music video mobilizes stereotypical tropes, such as the genie, the harem, magic lamp, and snake-charming flutes, to situate Bach within an imagined Orient associated with irrationality, sensuality, and spellcasting. The flute becomes a supernatural, seductive object; Bach’s melody becomes a mating call. Methodologically, the paper combines musical analysis, music-video analysis, reception evidence (including YouTube commentary), and engagement with scholarship on Orientalism. I situate this case within broader processes of appropriation and resignification in Contemporary Commercial Music, where canonical works are repurposed to serve new aesthetic and social functions. This case complicates dominant narratives of Bach reception that center Europe and North America. In a South American peripheral reality marked by class stratification and uneven access to the Western classical tradition, Bach’s music may sound as foreign as the imagined Orient itself. The “other,” in this context, is determined not only by geography but by access to the canon. “Bum Bum Tam Tam” thus exposes both the attraction and the distance between Bach and audiences less familiar with Western art music, demonstrating how canonical authority is simultaneously reinforced and transformed in global popular culture. | |