Learning through music festivals

This article explores one particular music festival, the Festspel i Pite lvdal, as a source of musical learning. It is grounded in the empirical data of a case study that was gathered through observation, a survey, in-depth interviews, documentation and archival records. The theoretical framework was taken from modernity theory, and the study's epistemological basis was Lave and Wenger's theories of situated learning. The festival was seen as a community of practice, in which the attendees learned through peripheral participation. The findings showed that the audience learned music, about music and via music. When the outcome was compared with theories of musical knowledge, it became evident that it was similar to what people are expected to gain from other informal as well as formal music educational settings. The findings are discussed in relation to music education philosophy and research as well as perspectives found within ethnomusicology.