Book excerpt: This book interrogates musicological discourses of creativity from the perspective of critical theory and postcolonial studies, examining their ideological underpinnings and the relationships of alterity which they sustain. The repertoire which forms the book’s main focus is Iranian classical music, a tradition in which the performer plays a central creative role. Addressing a number of central issues regarding the nature of musical creativity, the author explores both the discourses through which ideas about creativity are constructed, exchanged and negotiated within this tradition, and the practices by which new music comes into being.