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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Musie Circulation and Transmission in Tbilisi, Georgia

by

Brigita Sebald

Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology University of Califomia, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Timothy Rice, Chair

This dissertation, based upon two years of ethnographic research in Tbilisi, Georgia, ąuestions how popular musie travels from the performer to the audience and how it circulates among audience members. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the state-run musie industry collapsed, taking the infrastructure for musie distribution with it. In the years sińce, a musie industry has not been rebuilt due to uncertain economic realities and a shaky political situation. Because of this, performers have difficulty spreading their musie through the mass media or by selling it, and alternative distributory methods have developed. The concept of distribution, which is often associated with the activities of the musie industry, is replaced with circulation, expressing music’s de-centralized movement and the role individuals play in making musie move. This dissertation establishes two spheres through which musie circulates: the first is characterized by a higher level of control by the govemment