Sacro-Soundscapes: Interpreting Contemporary Ritual Performances of Sacred Music through the Case of The Passion in the Netherlands

The Passion is a musical practice staged in the Dutch public sphere and an example of how large, Christian musical forms in late-modern network societies moved from the church to the broader culture. Neither the classical discipline of hymnology nor the emerging discipline of Christian congregational music studies have developed theoretical concepts that serve to understand musical practices outside the ecclesial domain. The authors distinguish the emerging field of fluid ritual musical practices and reinvent the concept of sacro-soundscapes as a notion that contributes to the interpretation of these practices. They claim that, consequentially, the aforementioned disciplines are included in this field and therefore change, as well.