The history of German settlement colonies overseas has been receiving increasing scholarly attention. From the beginning, music and theatre were high points of cultural life in these settlements. While they emphasized folk genres at first, with increasing urbanisation the settlement colonies began to develop art music activities, as orchestras and string quartets were founded and skilled composers either moved to the colonies or were educated there. The German colonists have always been in a charged situation, caught between blending with the majority culture and preserving their own identity. Especially in the early 20th century, this tension led to separatism on the one hand and the pressure to assimilate on the other. This book summarises the papers presented at an international conference in Florianópolis and Blumenau, Brazil, and offers for the first time a comprehensive and worldwide perspective on the phenomenon of German music history outside Europe.weiterlesen