Post-Westernism is a transformation in which the West is no longer the hegemonic center but rather projects a new era of music. This research proposes Post-Westernism as the fundamental shift after the post-tonal (contemporary) era in art (classical) music. While the post-tonal era emerged from the rebellion toward tonality, Post-Westernism calls for critiquing the Western nature of both tonality and post-tonality. Through this, Post Westernism investigates the current musical hegemony and proposes a multipolar system via the decolonization and transculturation of music and scholarship. It answers the question: How will composers innovate when innovation is institutionalized and the avant-garde is categorized as post tonal? This research answers this problem of homogeneity in composition through the expansion toward the mystified and unexplored cultures of the non-West, hence the multipolarity of musical cultures. This research draws its theoretical framework from Foucault’s power dynamics in his work Discipline and Punish (1995), Said’s “Orientalism”, and postcolonial (decolonial and transcultural) theory, specifically in Ortiz’s Cuban Counterpoint (1995). It evaluates the current global trends that demonstrate Post-Westernism, its tangible developments and the issues faced in the status quo.
Mark Jericho Y. Pacia (Sun,) studied this question.