ABSTRACT
The main aims of ethnomusicology is to approach these relations between music and society, to consider the complex networks of interdependence existing in any social entity between, on one hand, the context and circumstances of a musical act – collective or individual – and, the nature and modalities of the act itself. To distinguish this music from modern world music, the institutions typically apply certain precise criteria in choosing guest artists: authenticity: artists are considered representative of their culture; quality: they are qualified and, when possible, according to the opinion of competent people, are among the best of the kind; exportability: they are 'exportable', meaning that their performances, once transposed out of context, retain as far as possible their full significance and to incite cultural voyeurism. People are certainly the products of culture, but of a culture undergoing mutation, constantly oscillating between requirements of the local and those of the global.
