ABSTRACT
The chapter is based on an ethnographic investigation of how competence and entrepreneurship were exercised among migrant musicians as part of their professional career paths in Norway. Applying and further developing the music sociology concepts “musical pathways”, “musicianship” and “aesthetic cosmopolitan body”, the study examined informants’ individual ways of managing any musical gentrification that may occur in their musical world. One aspect of the musical gentrification process is that there is a risk of these musicians being perceived as “typical” representatives of their cultural origin. On the one hand this brings opportunities for musicians to start working in a field that is open to them and use this as a springboard to connect to other musical fields. However, this stereotyping may dis-connect the musicians from musical pathways that can lead them to new musical fields as well as their old musical fields that they wish to be re-connected with. It is suggested that pluralistic and reflexive approaches are necessary for the host country to tackle complex cultural diversity in ways that maximise and distribute the resources that migrant musicians bring to a host country.
