Embedded performers: The relational foundations of record production.

This article discusses some network mechanisms that may facilitate involvement in artistic production. More specifically, it explores the nature of the collaborative networks in which musicians are embedded, and looks for the structural configurations that are most conducive to individual creativity. Drawing upon a dataset consisting of 253 music teachers in the Italian region of Trentino, and focusing in particular on record production, the article shows productivity and artistic vitality to be highest among musicians with a balanced combination of ties to other musicians in the local music schools system, and ties to musicians with different territorial locations. These findings contribute to established lines of research on the network determinants of individual productivity and creativity in various domains. • Dense networks of collaborators, if restricted to musicians from the same local milieu, do not facilitate record production. • Neither do huge but dispersed networks of collaborators if located in places afar from music teachers' locality. • Music teachers are more active in record production if their collaboration networks combine homophily and heterophily. • Female music teachers are less likely to engage in record production than their male colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]