ABSTRACT
Global music experts such as Patricia Shehan Campbell suggest a “culture bearer” might be helpful in negotiating the challenges associated with learning and engaging with music from unfamiliar musical cultures and traditions. The culture-bearer approach makes sense, but also raises concerns. Can it meaningfully enhance intercultural understanding? In this chapter we report a study that examined an encounter between a community choir in Ontario, Canada and a visiting guest conductor who taught and conducted music from the African American gospel tradition. Choir members described gaining musical understandings, social-historical understandings, and understandings of self in relation to the culture.
