The cultural heritage of São Bento do Sul and its role in earning the title 'Music City'.

Abstract

This article aims to list and discuss the discursive aspects that support São Bento do Sul’s epithet, SC, “City of music”. These are silent manifestations – monuments, signs, buildings – as well as cultural practices such as musical events, bands, and ensembles that support, or are supported by, these discourses. To this end, the article draws on studies of memory, identity and cultural heritage, with specific emphasis on aspects of memory and identity (Candau, 2011) and representations of cities through their symbols (Jeudy, 2005). The objective, therefore, is to discuss the city’s epithet and the ways in which it is upheld by elements of the municipality’s collective memory, as well as to identify how these discursive forms manifest in the city’s urban daily life. Through the bibliographical research, the official narratives of the city’s history are problematized, and through field research, signs and lived spaces in the city are presented that both reinforce and are, in turn, shaped by the discourse of the epithet “City of Music”. Collective memory, music, and heritage discourse are interrelated, in a city that builds its own narrative based on musical traditions. We also seek to investigate the devices used by the present-day city to maintain the discourse surrounding its epithet.