The chorale Saint Michel Archanges in Cremona (Lombardy, Italy) between locality and translocality

Abstract

As part of a larger fieldwork project on music and migration in Cremona (Lombardy, Italy) and its surroundings, I have been studying the musics of migrants’ rituals since 2015. In the kaleidoscopic religious soundscape made up of more than 15 churches and temples – from Sikh, to Orthodox, to Buddhist – a larger part is made up of Christian Africans. Their religious practice is organised by faith and nationality, thus most of them have specific churches and priests. But the chants they sing tell a story of multiple ethnic and local belongings, a richness of musical specificities and languages that comes from the various cultural capitals of the participants who mix nationality with place of origin, ethnicity, nation of reception, Christianity and Africanness. Furthermore, an attempt by the Diocese to create a single transnational community of African Francophone Christian churches is taking place. In my article I concentrate my attention on the role music has in these rituals. Which belongings does it express? Music can tell more than what the actors intend to represent with words.