Creative heritage: An approach for research and practice integrating heritage and the performing arts

Abstract

This article explores issues relating to interdisciplinary work between heritage and creative practice. In particular, issues in conceptualising music heritage are raised through an example of research integrating heritage and creativity in a project aimed at highlighting jazz heritage in Queensland, Australia. The project, titled ‘Trading Fours’, was an extension of heritage research that sought to add oral histories, recorded music and ephemera to the Queensland Jazz Archive. The Trading Fours project, based in artistic practice, archival and heritage work, sought the creation of new music from composers and musicians interacting with newly recovered jazz heritage. The aim of the project was to better connect artists and communities with local cultural histories. This article problematises the usefulness of existing conceptual and methodological approaches to the combination of music, heritage, memory, and performance within the project. In reviewing the project methodology, the article suggests that a new approach, termed ‘creative heritage’, could prove valuable for producing and understanding artistic works based around and within heritage work, with the potential to provide greater insight into connections between the arts, creativity and heritage.