Thursday 18 December 2008

Conf Announcement: The Symphony Orchestra as Cultural Phenomenon (IMR, London)

THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AS CULTURAL PHENOMENON
INSTITUTE OF MUSICAL RESEARCH, LONDON
1 - 3 JULY 2010
CALL FOR PAPERS


Programme Committee to include: Katharine Ellis (IMR), Stephen Cottrell (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Rachel Cowgill (University of Leeds/Liverpool Hope University), Jonathan Cross (University of Oxford), Julian Rushton (University of Leeds).

Keynote Speakers to include: Tina K. Ramnarine (Royal Holloway, University of London), David Wright (Royal College of Music).

The conference seeks to explore the economic, political, social and cultural developments connected with the Symphony Orchestra, and their reciprocal effects on music, individuals, institutions and places. By placing emphasis on a comparative, contextual approach, we aim to highlight local and national idiosyncrasies.

A call for papers will be issued early in 2009.
http://music.sas.ac.uk

Convenors:
Duncan Boutwood – D.J.Boutwood at leeds.ac.uk and Roddy Hawkins – R.W.M.Hawkins at leeds.ac.uk Please email the convenors with any queries.

Elliott Carter at 100

The iconoclast of American music, Elliott Carter recently turned 100. The celebration of his centenary has been marked with various interviews, performances and other online exhibitions.

One interview was conducted on the NPR radio programme "All Things Considered:" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98081089 (8:20)

Elliott Carter discussing his new piece, Caténaires, for pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the Ensemble Contemporaine (26 October interview from New York): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp95zFUPEj0&feature=related (9:58)



He was also interviewed on NPR (National Public Radio, US) on the Charlie Rose Show (PBS) alongside pianist/conductors James Levine and Daniel Barenboim. The Youtube clip is an excerpt from the interview and contains Barenboim's recollections of his late friend, Edward Said, and his reminiscenses on the 'late style.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiDd4JVN9Vo  Alternatively, one can watch the entire interview at http://www.charlierose.com/

Other recent interviews include one with Frank Oteri (American Music Center - New Music Box) from mid-2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs8Ov2p-Rc (5:08)



Also in celebration of Carter's 100th birthday, the Library of Congress has digitised the manuscript sketches of his Sonata for Cello and Piano and the String Quartet no. 1. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200155900/default.html Lastly, they have put up a digitised version of The Musical Languages of Elliott Carter (1984) by Charles Rosen which operates in a manner similar to the British Library 'Turning the Page'.

A detail from p. 68 of the manuscript sketches of Carter's Cello Sonata from the Library of Congress.

Thanks to the Library of Congress for digitising these invaluable sketches and Happy Birthday to Mr Carter, may your next century be as prolific as your first!

CFP: Echo Conference: Music and Humor (UCLA)

2009 ECHO CONFERENCE: MUSIC AND HUMOUR
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
5 - 6 JUNE 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS


Submission deadline: February 27, 2009
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Dell’Antonio
University of Texas, Austin

From bawdy troubadour songs to Haydn’s string quartets, from comic opera to Monty Python sketches, music has been used as a vehicle for comedic expression in vastly different settings and for various purposes. There are many possible avenues of inquiry on this issue, including investigations of irony, parody, satire, camp, puns, and other perhaps less tasteful form of comic relief.

Echo: a music-centered journal is pleased to announce its fourth annual conference, "Music and Humor," to be held at UCLA on June 5-6, 2009. Scholars from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for papers on this theme. Submissions must be received by February 27th and may be sent electronically to echoconf at ucla.edu (please put "Echo Conference Submission" and your last name in the subject line).

Please visit http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume8-Issue1/conference09.html for full information.

Transcendence, Reality and Universality in the Music of Joseph Haydn (Upcoming conference, Carleton University)

TRANSCENDENCE, REALITY AND UNIVERSALITY IN THE MUSIC OF JOSEPH HAYDN
CARLETON UNIVERSITY, OTTAWA, CANADA
28 - 30 JANUARY 2009


This is an international collaboration between Carleton University and The Kunstuniversitaet Graz, in association with the Mozarteum Salzburg and the National Arts Centre, Ottawa. For more information, including special rates, see the conference website:

http://www.carleton.ca/ssac/music/haydn

CFP: Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (Music and the Sciences, journal)

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS (www.isr-journal.org)
SPECIAL ISSUE MUSIC AND THE SCIENCES
GUEST EDITOR: FRANS WIERING
CALL FOR PAPERS
DEADLINE: MONDAY 29 JUNE 2009


We invite you to contribute to a volume on music and the sciences. The articles in this issue are intended to provide an overview of how an understanding of music is enriched by the scientific study of it.

Musicology, the academic study of music, has always had a distinctly interdisciplinary nature. Strong interaction with the humanities has traditionally included such areas such as literature, arts, history, religion and philosophy. Musicology has likewise been enriched by interdisciplinary contact with the sciences, notably more so in the last few decades. It has become quite acceptable for computer scientists, mathematicians and cognitive scientists to study aspects of music either within their own disciplines or together with musicologists.

One reason why this may have happened is a distinctive change of focus in music research. Music is no longer studied in the first place from a ‘structural’ viewpoint, as a thing in itself. Instead, human involvement with music is put at the centre of attention. This is evident in the emergence of a strong research tradition in music perception and cognition, and in the recent involvement of the neurosciences. Music as a social phenomenon, even a means to define one’s personal identity, has attracted attention from sociology, anthropology and evolutionary biology. Music as a commodity has stimulated research from the perspectives of computer science and economics. Music has even become the motivation for interdisciplinary research outside musicology, for example in projects that connect cognition and computing research.

Though it is difficult to come up with an accurate estimate, it is clear that today a significant amount of music research is performed outside musicology. Probably the most important challenge such research faces is to bridge the apparent gap between a quantitative or empirical approach, which leads to generic insights, and the individual appreciation of music as an art and the understanding of the uniqueness of ‘musical works’ (to use a convenient expression that is somewhat discredited in recent research).

The latter aspect relates to the hardest questions in music research, which concern music and meaning. Music is obviously meaningful to a very large part of humankind. Yet such meaning is subjective, difficult to express, and hard to relate to measurable musical properties. Small wonder that musical meaning was regarded for a long time as an illegitimate question in music research. Yet questions about meaning do not just go away when they are being ignored, as they relate to the fundamental reasons why we want to study at all. Meaning has come back as a central topic in modern musicology, where it is answered using a variety of postmodern philosophical and culture-critical methods. In the sciences, a considerable amount of knowledge has been gathered about how music functions in the human mind and in society. Such knowledge may also be expected to shed some light on problems relating to musical meaning, for example what properties play a role in generating it, how it is perceived, stored and communicated to others, how it depends on training, exposure and cultural background and finally the question why we have music at all.

Practical matters
For this issue we solicit articles on interdisciplinary music research in the context of the mathematics, computing and the natural and social sciences such as (in no particular order) biology, physics, engineering, medicine, psychoacoustics, neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, sociology, anthropology and linguistics. Each article should provide an engaging account of how our understanding of music is enriched by one or more particular disciplines. Articles should present overviews rather than in-depth studies of a particular problem and should appeal in every case to non-specialists. They must, however, appeal to specialists as well. The inclusion of one or two insightful case-studies within the broader context presented in the article is definitely encouraged.

All contributions will be peer-reviewed. Articles may contain black-and-white illustrations (for which authors should seek any necessary permissions). Articles should have a maximum length of 6000 words. For details about format see www.maney.co.uk/journals/notes/isr.

All contributions should be sent to Frans Wiering, frans.wiering@cs.uu.nl. If you have any further questions, please contact Frans Wiering.

Schedule
2 February 2009 Please express your intention to contribute (title, authors, abstract)
29 June 2009 Submit first version
21 September 2009 Decision and reviewers’ comments to authors
30 November 2009 Submit final version
March 2010 Publication as Vol. 35:1

Saturday 13 December 2008

Sempre (Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research) Fellowships/Awards

SEMPRE (SOCIETY FOR EDUCATION, MUSIC AND PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH) SCHOLARSHIPS AND FUNDS
DEADLINE: MOST 1 MAY 2009 BUT VARIES VIA AWARD


GERRY FARRELL TRAVELLING SCHOLARSHIPS
Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (Sempre), UK The Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research invites applications for its Gerry Farrell travelling scholarships.
See
http://www.sempre.org.uk/awards_farrell.html

ARNOLD BENTLEY NEW INITIATIVES FUND
Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (Sempre), UK The Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research invites applications for the Arnold Bentley new initiatives fund.
See http://www.sempre.org.uk/awards.html

SEMPRE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (Sempre), UK The Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research invites nominations for its lifetime achievement award.
See http://www.sempre.org.uk/awards_hickman.html

Call for Applications: Camargo Foundation (French and Francophone studies)

CAMARGO FOUNDATION ACADEMIC AND ARTISTIC FELLOWSHIPS
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS


The Camargo Foundation welcomes applications from scholars pursuing studies in the humanities and social sciences relating to French and francophone cultures and from composers, writers, and visual artists pursuing specific projects. The interdisciplinary residency program is intended to give fellows the time and space they need to realise their projects. The Foundation’s hillside campus overlooks the Mediterranean Sea in Cassis, France; it includes thirteen furnished apartments, a reference library, and three art/music studios. Fellows are provided with accommodation on campus. A stipend of $2,500 is also available. Residencies are one semester (either early-September to mid-December or mid-January to the end of May).


Qualified candidates from all countries and nationalities are encouraged to apply. The application deadline is January 12 for either semester of the following academic year.

For more information and to apply, please consult our web site at www.camargofoundation.org

Theatre Award: Thurnau Award for Music Theatre Studies

THURNAU AWARD FOR MUSIC THEATRE STUDIES
BAYREUTH UNIVERSITY (GERMANY)


Submissions are now being accepted for the Thurnau Award for Music Theatre Studies for
young scholars which will be awarded the second time in 2009. The Thurnau Institute for Music Theatre Studies at Bayreuth University in Germany (Forschungsinstitut für Musiktheater – fimt) is an internationally unique research institution focusing on music theatre.

We are looking for modern, creative and outstanding methodological approaches in music theatre studies, trying to encourage interesting topics in neglected fields of research. Please send in your stimulating academic article from 18.000 - 27.000 characters incl. blank spaces (10-15 pages) which can be written in English, German, French or Italian. The essay may just be prepared for publication or already be published (not longer than 2 years ago).

Full details: http://www.fimt.uni-bayreuth.de/de/Thurnauer_Wissenschaftspreis/index.html

CFP: RSAMD Postgraduate Research Talks (Scotland)

CONNECTING RESEARCH: THE RSAMD POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH TALKS
FEBRUARY - JULY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Proposals are invited from research students to participate in the AHRC funded “Connecting Research: The RSAMD Postgraduate Research Talks”. This series of twelve talks will be given by graduate students currently working within the disciplines of music, drama and related areas. Current RSAMD research students are working on traditional as well as early music, gender studies, performance practice and composition. We welcome proposals from these and related areas, including the performing and visual arts. All forms of dissemination are invited: papers, lecture-recitals and performances are welcome. Preference will be given to practice-based research wherever possible. The talks will take place between February and July 2009.

Interested participants are invited to submit an abstract (not longer than 200 words in length) and brief CV via email to: c.guillaumier@rsamd.ac.uk. The closing date for submission of proposals to the committee is 31st January 2009.

The talks will take place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. This research training initiative is jointly sponsored by the AHRC and the RSAMD. All selected speakers will have their travel expenses and one night’s accommodation paid. Participants will have the opportunity to present their work to a friendly and supportive audience made up of their peers as well as experts in the field. This forum will thus provide graduate researchers with the chance to present their work to a wide audience and to make connections with colleagues working in similar fields.

CFP: Music and the Moving Image (NYU)

MUSIC AND THE MOVING IMAGE IV CONFERENCE
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
29 - 31 MAY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS


The fourth annual conference, Music and the Moving Image, encourages submissions from scholars and practitioners that explore the relationship between music and the entire universe of moving images (film, television, iPod, computer, video games, and interactive performances) through paper presentations and plenary sessions. This year two keynote addresses, Philip Tagg, Univ. of Montreal (Kojak: 50 Seconds of Television Music; Ten Little Title Tunes) and Caryl Flinn, Univ. of Arizona (Strains of Utopia; New German Cinema) will be presented. In addition, a screening of Peggy Stern's Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood with a discussion about animated films will be a featured part of the Saturday evening program. Streaming video versions of presentations will be available only at NYU from May 29 - June 1, 2009. Accepted papers will be considered for inclusion in the peer-reviewed online journal Music and the Moving Image: http://mmi.press.uiuc.edu/

Abstracts or synopses of papers (250 words) should be submitted to: Dr. Ron Sadoff, chair of the program committee, by no later than Dec. 15, 2008.

E-mail ron.sadoff at nyu.edu for more information.
Ron Sadoff, New York University 35 West 4th St Rm 777, New York, NY, 10012

Conference fee (May 29, 30, 31): $150.00 - Students: $75.00, Housing Available

Web site: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/scoring/conference/

Forum on Music & Christian Scholarship (Upcoming conference, Notre Dame)

FORUM ON MUSIC & CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP
2009 ANNUAL MEETING
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, DEPARTMENTS OF MUSIC AND THEOLOGY
27 - 28 FEBRUARY 2009


The 2009 annual meeting of the Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship will be held in McKenna Hall (the Center for Continuing Education) at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The program features a keynote address by Peter Jeffery of Princeton University and a plenary session based on issues raised in Karol Berger’s book _Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow_ (University of California Press, 2007), with a response by Prof. Berger. The ten paper sessions will address a broad range of topics.

Complete information, including:
* registration forms
* program information
* abstracts of papers (available later this month)
* accommodation information
* travel information
is available at the web site: www.fmcs.us/2009

For further information, please contact:

Timothy H. Steele
Associate Professor of Music
Calvin College
ths3 at calvin.edu
tel. 616-526-8523

For local arrangements, please contact: Mary E. Frandsen: frandsen.3 at nd.edu

Friday 5 December 2008

CFP: Postcolonialism and the Future of Music Research in South Africa (South Africa)

POSTCOLONIALISM AND THE FUTURE OF MUSIC RESEARCH IN SOUTH AFRICA: 3RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH IN MUSIC
SCHOOL OF MUSIC, UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL
29 JUNE - 1 JULY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS


Researchers are invited to submit proposals for presentations at the third annual conference of SASRIM. Presentations may take the form of 20-minute papers, joint 20-minute presentations, panel discussions, 45-minute demonstration papers, or poster displays. Topics that do not address the conference theme may also be considered for inclusion. Proposals should be approximately 300 words long and should be accompanied by the cvs of the presenters. Closing date for submissions: 28 February 2009. No late submissions will be considered.

Proposals and any queries should be sent to sasrim at gmail.com or SASRIM, PO Box 3452, Grahamstown 6140

Further conference information will be posted at http://music.ukzn.ac.za.

CFP: Music Research Forum (journal)

MUSIC RESEARCH FORUM VOLUME 24
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
CALL FOR PAPERS


Music Research Forum is currently accepting submissions from outstanding graduate students and young professionals. The postmark deadline for submissions for Volume 24 (Summer 2009) is 16 January 2009.

Music Research Forum is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Graduate Student Association of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Articles will be considered in any area of music scholarship, including musicology, theory, performance practice, ethnomusicology, music and culture, and criticism. Faculty are encouraged to pass this information along to their students and recent graduates.

Authors must submit three hard copies of each article to:

Brad Smith, Editor
Music Research Forum
College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati
P.O. Box 210003
Cincinnati OH 45221-0003

A cover sheet listing the author's name, address, telephone number, email address, and academic affiliation (if applicable) must precede articles. Articles should be between twelve and thirty pages, word-processed on 8.5x11-inch paper. All materials, including example captions, should be double-spaced and conform to the footnote guidelines found in The Chicago Manual of Style.

For additional information: Visit us online at http://www.ccm.uc.edu/comp_theory_hist/mrf

CFP: Principles of Music Composing - Orchestra as Phenomenon (Lithuania)

9TH INTERNATIONAL MUSIC THEORY CONFERENCE: PRINCIPLES OF MUSIC COMPOSING - ORCHESTRA AS PHENOMENON
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
22 - 24 APRIL 2009

Sponsored by the Lithuanian Composers’ Union, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre

--Orchestral conceptions:
a) Approach of musicology to orchestra and orchestral nature (conceptions, notions, terminology);
b) Possibility for the definition of orchestra (orchestra – ensemble – soloist).

--Orchestra as a cultural tradition:
a) Orchestras of world regions (symphonic, gamelan, gagaku, ‘ethno‘, etc.);
b) Specific features of orchestral playing;
c) Possibilities for symbiosis of orchestral cultural types.

--Historical signs in the evolution of orchestra (orchestral school, style, genre, work, arrangement, etc.).

--Orchestra in the field of researches in acoustics and psychological perception.

--Functional and timbre possibilities of orchestra (orchestral structure, instruments, synthesis of timbres, etc.).

--Principles of orchestral thinking in contemporary music.

Paper proposals (abstract together with a short biography) should be sent to Mr. Marius Baranauskas: mbaranaus at yahoo.com . The abstract must not exceed 500 words. The duration of papers will be limited to 20 minutes, leaving 10 minutes for questions and discussions. Please indicate whether your proposal belongs to one or more of the conference sub themes.

The deadline for proposal submissions is March 8, 2009. The proposals will be reviewed by members of the organizing committee and all applicants will be notified of the outcome in the middle of March 2009.

The main language of the conference is English.

The material of the conference – abstracts and papers will be published.

For more information about the conference contact: Lithuanian Composers’ Union, Mickeviciaus 29, LT-08117 Vilnius, Lithuania. Coordinator of the conference Marius Baranauskas: mbaranaus at yahoo.com , tel. +37068302267. www.mxl.lt

CFP: Bowed String Instruments in Traditional Cultures (SOAS)

3rd BIENNIAL LONDON FIDDLE CONFERENCE: "BOWED STRING INSTRUMENTS IN TRADITIONAL CULTURES"
SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES (SOAS), LONDON
20 - 22 FEBRUARY 2009


WEBSITE: www.geocities.com/FiddleConference2009

The LONDON FIDDLE CONFERENCE AT SOAS is a biennial event in a rolling programme of research seminars and performance workshops. We cover all aspects of bowed string instruments in popular culture worldwide.

DEFINITION: The violin has its origins in Central Asian bowed string instruments that have moved around the world, developing in many different ways. Because of the importance of the violin in European culture, it has been re-exported and absorbed by other cultural traditions, often alongside indigenous string instruments. We are interested in exploring fiddlesof all types, and relationships and contrasts between instruments of the violin type and indigenous bowed string instruments.

This is an open conference, open to the general public.

There will be a CONCERT AND CEILIDH SESSION on the night of Friday 20th February featuring the combined forces of the Cambridge University Ceilidh Band and the SOAS Ceilidh Band. The conference will begin on Friday afternoon 20th February with a guided tour visit to the wonderful INSTRUMENT COLLECTION at the Horniman Museum in South London.

Early arrivers may also be interested in Colin Dunne's show OUT OF TIME at the Barbican on Thursday 19 February. This presents a dancer's view of the world of Irish traditional dance.

Our research interests address the following broad themes:

- The violin beyond the Western orchestra: Papers are invited that explore the use of fiddles in European and American folk traditions, in Middle Eastern and Indian music ensembles, and in contemporary practice.

- Fiddles through the world: Papers are invited that explore the role of bowed string instruments, their diversity, and their history. We include discussion of two-string and three-string fiddles in the Middle East, East and Southeast Asia, Islamic Africa and elsewhere.

- Diffusion and development: Papers are invited that explore the organology of violins and fiddles, particularly in a cross-cultural context. We also welcome presentations that look at historical diffusion and the socio-cultural reasons why particular instrument versions have become favoured in specific cultural traditions.

- Making instruments: Papers are invited that explore instrument construction.

Makers are invited to discuss their own construction methods and developments. We also welcome presentations that demonstrate the acoustic properties of instruments.

The above list is not exclusive, and researchers are encouraged to present papers that fall outside of these topic areas.

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION

Full Rate £30 - Day Rate £12
Concessions £10 - Day Rate £5

If you cannot afford to pay, let us know and we shall see what can be done. Note: There is no registration charge for people presenting papers and workshops.


PROPOSALS OF PAPERS
If you wish to register to attend the conference, or wish to present a paper, please send contact details to the organiser at the address below.

Ed Emery
[Fiddle Conference]
Peterhouse,
Cambridge CB2 1RD

E-mail: ed.emery [@] thefreeuniversity.net

PLEASE NOTE: This weekend will also feature the Saturday Night Concert of the not-to-be-missed LONDON FIDDLE CONVENTION, to be held at Cecil Sharp House.

The London Fiddle Conference is an independent initiative organised with the collaboration of the SOAS Department of Music.

WEBSITE OF THE 2009 CONFERENCE:
www.geocities.com/FiddleConference2009

Thursday 4 December 2008

CFP: Festival of Faith and Music (Calvin College, Michigan)

FESTIVAL OF FAITH AND MUSIC
CALVIN COLLEGE, GRAND RAPIDS, MI
2 - 4 APRIL 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
Keynote Speaker: Cornel West

The Festival of Faith & Music is a biennial conference that brings together musicians, journalists, academics, students and lovers of music and popular culture to discuss diverse forms of popular music and issues of faith. We are interested in discovering and celebrating popular music that can be understood as rooted in conviction and/or engaged with themes of faith broadly conceived, including justice, truth, hope, epiphany, transcendence, and redemption, and in
hearing or interpreting popular music from faith perspectives. Calvin College is a Christian liberal arts college which seeks to study and engage popular culture. Our festival is not primarily concerned with the Christian music industry or limited to discussing only those artists who publicly embrace a specific religion. Rather, we hope to facilitate a broader conversation about all forms of popular music and our response to it as people of faith.

Past festivals have featured artists Emmylou Harris, Sufjan Stevens, Neko Case, and David Bazan. For this year’s festival, we have invited The Hold Steady, Over The Rhine, and T Bone Burnett, and we anticipate the inclusion of many other artists. Our keynote speaker will be Cornel West, and other confirmed speakers include Makoto Fujimura, Josh Jackson (creator of Paste Magazine), Jessica Hopper, Terry Mattingly, Cathleen Falsani, and Andy Crouch.

We are seeking proposals for 20 minute (2,000-2,500 word) papers that address issues of faith in popular music and its various social and cultural contexts. We are particularly interested in papers related to our artists and speakers. Updates on confirmed artists and speakers can be found on the festival website: http://www.calvin.edu/admin/sao/festival/.

Please email a 300-word abstract (attached in Word format) to Drs. Benita Wolters-Fredlund and Mary McCampbell at ffmcfp at gmail.com. by 20 January 2009. Queries are also welcome.

International Symposium: Signalling Sound (Upcoming conference, Warwick)

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM, 'SIGNALLING SOUND'
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
7 MARCH 2009

This symposium will draw together for the first time leading international researchers from a variety of different backgrounds currently working in the areas of hearing science and musicology to explore the relationship between neurological aspects of auditory perception and historical music creativity. The purpose is to discuss how new developments in the aural cognitive sciences will lead to deeper understanding of past and present technical and aesthetic practices of music listening and production, and the way in which music history (aesthetics and theory) mirrors current thinking in the acoustical cognitive sciences.

Convenor: Dr Ingrid J. Sykes

Speakers include:
Daniel Pressnitzer (Keynote), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Professor Katherine Bergeron, Brown University, USA
Professor Brian Hyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Professor Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus, WIKO, Universität Potsdam, Germany
Professor Joseph Butch Rovan, Brown University, USA

Sponsored by the Wellcome Trust
For information: Ingrid.Sykes@warwick.ac.uk 

Sound Copyright Campain (European Union)

From The Sound Copyright Campaign:

The flawed proposal to extend the term of copyright protection afforded to sound recordings, robbing consumers in the name of perfomers but for the benefit of the world’s four major record labels, is being fast-tracked through the democratic process. Earlier this month MEPs from the relevant European Parliament committees presented their draft reports (1) at a meeting of the legal affairs committee (JURI), the Committee which will make recommendations to the European Parliament on how to vote on the Directive early next year. They proposed a host of worrying new amendments which threaten to:

* Weaken further already inadequate measures intended to allow orphan works, and commercially worthless but culturally significant recordings to pass into the public domain (Culture (CULT), Internal Market (IMCO) and the Industry, Technology and Research (ITRE) committees draft reports).

* Allow record labels to deduct “costs” from a fund intended to benefit session musicians, further shrinking the pot of money made available to performers in favour of labels (IMCO committee draft report).

* Dramatically widen the scope of the Directive to include audio-visual recording, even though no relevant impact assessment has been conducted into what effect this might have on consumers and follow-on innovators. (JURI and ITRE committee draft reports).

(1) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/term-extension-committee-draft-reports.zip

At the JURI meeting, Dr Lionel Bently of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) Cambridge, dismissed the proposal stating that “record producers will gain the lion’s share of revenues on sales in the extended term”. He warned that the Directive would accrue serious social and economic costs, and concluded that MEPs should “oppose this measure in its totality.” (2)

(2)http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/prof-bently-juri-speech.pdf

Bently is not the only expert to oppose the Directive. In an open letter to MEPs, Europe’s leading intellectual property research centres unanimously condemned the proposal (3). The European Broadcast Union has also stated publicly that the proposal will make consumers foot the bill while stifling innovation (4).

(3) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/term-open-letter-and-statement.zip
(4) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/ebu-position-paper-extending-the-term-of-copyright-protection.doc

Earlier this month ORG met with MEPs in the European Parliament to express our serious concerns about the proposal. We warned that the European Commission’s own figures demonstrate that performers will benefit little from the extended term (5), while the world’s four major record labels will gain millions of Euros direct from consumer’s pockets. We argued that this damaged the respect necessary for a functioning IP system.

(5) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/openrights-scotsman-oct-08.pdf

But our voice is not as powerful as yours. It’s vital that you contact your MEPs now (6) and tell them why term extension is bad news (7).

(6) http://www.soundcopyright.eu/system/files/MEP+lobbying+tips.pdf
(7) http://www.soundcopyright.eu/system/files/Briefing.pdf

With all the evidence pointing against this measure, you can call on your MEPs to put a stop to bad IP law and reject this proposal. You can also also tell the appropriate government department in your own EU country (8) (in the UK it is DCMS), as they will be meeting in the Council of Ministers to discuss term extension.

(8) http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/urls.jsp

With the European elections next year, Parliament is set to move quickly on this issue. It’s up to you to remind your representatives that their job is to look out for your interests, not to rush through bad law.

The Sound Copyright Campaign
Run by the Open Rights Group and EFF

CFP: The Nu-Romantic: Revealing the Developing Artistic Milieu in Film, Theatre & Television (Reading)

THE NU-ROMANTIC: REVEALING THE DEVELOPING ARTISTIC MILIEU IN FILM, THEATRE AND TELEVISION
UNIVERSITY OF READING
17 APRIL 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Romanticism was a cultural landscape characterised by the eternal oscillation between a ‘modern’ enthusiasm that had failed and a ‘postmodern’ irony that would soon falter. Now, years later, another scene marked by oscillations is taking shape.

Under the name of Nu-Romanticism (‘naked’ Romanticism) JAM 2009 aims to initiate a mapping of this evolving landscape. It offers a chance to explore and define the new forms of thought, conception and creation that follow the established pattern of Romanticism. We look to current theory and critical practice within Film, Theatre and Television to reveal new forms of oscillation, be they between Aesthetic and Narrative, between Spectatorship and Performativity, between the Sublime and melancholy, hope and failure.

JAM 2009, the seventh annual conference for postgraduates run by postgraduates at the Department of Film, Theatre & Television, welcomes proposals that investigate, question or put pressure on the notion of a re-emerging Romanticism within film, theatre and television. We invite postgraduates to consider the concept of a new or renewed Romanticism in relation to the following areas of discussion:

• Aesthetics
• Genre
• Form vis-à-vis Content
• Narrative
• Space, Place and Landscape
• Representation
• Spectatorship and Social Relevance
• Performance and Performativity
• Medium Specificity
• Postgraduate Practice
• New Technologies

CALL FOR PAPERS deadline: Friday 30th January 2009 Please send a 250-word proposal and a 100-word biographical note to Tim Vermeulen, Harper Ray and Reina-Marie Loader at jam2009@rdg.ac.uk

Journeys Across Media (JAM) is an annual one-day interdisciplinary conference organised by and for postgraduate students. It provides a discussion forum for current and developing research in film, theatre, television and ‘new media’. Previous delegates have welcomed the opportunity to gain experience of presenting their work, at different stages of development, in the active, friendly and supportive research environment of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading. Non-presenting delegates are also very welcome. Supported by the Standing Committee of University Drama Departments (SCUDD) and the Graduate School in Arts and Humanities, University of Reading.

Updates to DDM-Online and Hofmeister XIX now available

DDM-ONLINE
The current update of DDM-Online has now been completed and is available for your use at http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/ddm/ . This update includes forty-four new or revised records (received as of 22 November 2008) and brings the total size of the database to 13,930 records.

As part of our ongoing revision of older records, this update also includes the addition of hundreds of new index numbers (for ProQuest/Dissertation Abstracts, ProQuest/UMI, RILM Abstracts, and British Library Document Supply) to the records for completed dissertations in the "General-Miscellaneous," "Antiquity," "Middle Ages," "Renaissance," and "Baroque" sections of DDM-Online. Similar numbers were added to the "Romantic" and the first half of the "Twentieth Century" sections in previous updates. In the next update, we will add the index numbers for the "Classical" and the second half of the "Twentieth Century" sections.

We continue to rely on each of you as individual authors to register your dissertation topics with us as you begin work and then to register the dissertations themselves anew as they are completed. Online registration is available through a link on the DDM-Online home page, but we are always glad to send our conventional registration postcard upon request.

Please check your record in DDM-Online, and if it needs updating from a topic to a completed dissertation (or if it is not present at all), please do register your work with us.

In addition, we always appreciate hearing from individuals who can supply information on musicologically related dissertations that have not been registered with DDM-Online for one reason or another.

Finally, we would be very grateful if dissertation advisors and Directors of Graduate Study would periodically review the in-progress sections of DDM-Online and notify us of any projects they know to have been abandoned (or completed). Quite naturally, authors sometimes neglect to notify us if they withdraw from a program, and in the absence of specific notice from an author or advisor, it is nearly impossible to identify an abandoned project, especially since some dissertations are indeed "in progress" for many years.


VERSION 1.0 OF HOFMEISTER XIX NOW AVAILABLE

Hofmeister XIX is the on-line, searchable version of the Hofmeister Monatsberichte for the years 1829-1900. Containing some 330,000 records of music publications, it is the most extensive resource for establishing what was published where and when during that period. Records are linked to facsimile images of the Monatsberichte on the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) website.

The beta version of Hofmeister XIX was released in 2007. Version 1.0 incorporates corrections, many improvements, and additional facilities. Like the beta version it is accessible free of charge at www.hofmeister.rhul.ac.uk

Hofmeister XIX is a Royal Holloway project, funded by the AHRC and programmed by CCH (King's College, London), with project management by Elizabeth Robinson.

Nicholas Cook (project director)
Director, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music Professorial Research Fellow, Royal Holloway, University of London From April 2009: Professor of Music, University of Cambridge nicholas.cook at rhul.ac.uk

Citation, Intextexuality, Memory in the Middle Ages (Upcoming Conf, Exeter)

CITATION, INTERTEXTUALITY, MEMORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES: TEXT, MUSIC, IMAGE
An international and interdisciplinary conference
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER, CENTRE FOR MEDIEVAL STUDIES
29 - 30 JANUARY 2009

Registration deadline: 17 December 2008

Just as our own society delights in exploiting citation, quotation, and allusion in an array of different contexts, medieval writers, artists, and composers were intensely aware of the vast potential for such external references to enrich their works. By evoking canonical texts or their producers from the distant or the more recent past -- whether from Classical antiquity, the sacred tradition, or recent vernacular contexts -- medieval authors demonstrated their respect for tradition while impressing on their own work the stamp of authority. Recent books on memory in the Middle Ages are stimulating the interest of scholars across a range of disciplines. The theme of intertextuality continues to attract attention, especially that of literary scholars but equally scholars from other disciplines concerned with the Middle Ages, including historians, art historians and musicologists. The conference that will be held in Exeter on 29-30th January 2009 locates itself within this attempt to stimulate further scrutiny of this theme from broad disciplinary and chronological perspectives.

The programme of the conference is available on line at the web address:

CFP: Conference on Music and Emotion (Durham)

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MUSIC AND EMOTION
UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM
31 AUGUST - 3 SEPTEMBER 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS


The conference is conceived around four key-note panels representing the disciplines of music theory, philosophy, psychology and sonic arts. In addition, we invite papers on any aspect of emotion research, including:

* new tools for analysing emotion in musical structure
* theories of expression, arousal, contagion, and representation
* categorical, dimensional, circumplex, and prototype models
* aesthetic psychology and the role of empirical evidence
* statistical and probabilistic models, including theories of expectation and markedness
* measuring physiological change, brain imaging, and analysis of gesture and whole-body movement
* mechanisms of induction, transmission, and evaluation
* cross-modality and metaphor
* labelling versus dynamic modelling
* cross-cultural and trans-historical differences and universals
* musical emotion in social context
* classical versus evolutionary perspectives
* rhetoric, figurality, and the passions
* how emotion is mediated through musical form, material, timbre, and voice

Proposals (up to 200 words) for papers of around 20 minutes' duration should be sent by email to Jo Buckley (jo.buckley@durham.ac.uk) by 1st March 2009.
Further details can be found at www.dur.ac.uk/music.emotion/.

Music Analysis Summer School (Durham)

MUSIC ANALYSIS SUMMER SCHOOL 2009
DURHAM UNIVERSITY, UK
13 - 15 JULY 2009


Building on the success of their jointly sponsored Research Training Roadshows, the SMA, in collaboration with the IMR and the publishers of Music Analysis, Wiley-Blackwell, will inaugurate a biennial summer school in music analysis at the University of Durham, 13-15 July 2009. The residential course will be open to international applicants and will provide a unique
forum for advanced study in theory and analysis in the UK.

Designed as an intensive programme run in small seminar groups, the summer school will feature three UK tutors from different institutions (William Drabkin, Julian Horton and Michael Spitzer) and a Wiley-Blackwell Fellow from the United States, the eminent theorist Richard Cohn (Yale University). Seminars will be given on Neo-Riemannian harmony, Schenker, the new
Formenlehre and semiotics. The Editorial Board of Music Analysis has provided a subvention that will offer up to twenty-five postgraduate students in music free accommodation and meals: participants need only cover the cost of their travel to Durham.

More details about the summer school, including a full programme and registration form, may be found at the website: http://www.dur.ac.uk/analysis.school/

The summer school is supported by the Society for Music Analysis, Durham University, Wiley-Blackwell, the Society for Music Theory and the Institute of Musical Research.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

CFP: Space in Medieval France (Sorbonne)

SPACE IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE
6TH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM OF THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL SOCIETY
UNIVERSITE' DE PARIS I (SORBONNE), FRANCE
24 - 26 JUNE 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline for Submissions: 1 February 2009
Keynote speakers: Dominique Iogna-Prat and Philippe Plagnieux

The International Medieval Society of Paris (IMS-Paris) is soliciting abstracts for individual papers and proposals for complete sessions for its 2009 Symposium organized around the theme of space in medieval France.

Questions about ideas of space have recently invigorated the field of medieval studies, challenging prevailing Modernist views that the concept of space only existed from the Renaissance onward. The Sorbonne's collection Constructions de l'espace au Moyen Age: pratiques et représentations (2007) showcases recent historical research on spatiality, particularly regarding geographical limits and boundaries, as well as the role of space in social relations and practices, while Sarah Kay's Place of Thought (2007) re-evaluates the complexity of the locus communis from a literary perspective. These publications complement ongoing investigations by historians of visual culture into the dynamic meanings, uses and phenomenologies of medieval space.

This symposium aims to generate an interdisciplinary forum on space in medieval France between c. 500 and c. 1500 that will enrich these ongoing debates and our knowledge of space in the Middle Ages by approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives. Papers should address France, Francia or post-Roman Gaul in some way, but they need
not be exclusively limited to this geographic area.

We encourage papers on the following topics, as well as papers for open sessions in all disciplines:
• Public and private space
• Walls, boundaries, limits
• The shape of space in medieval art, architecture, and music
• Space or place?
• Astronomy
• Sacred and profane space
• Commercial space
• Performance and the use of space
• Space and identity in the medieval city

Abstracts in French or English of 300 words or less for a 20-minute paper should be e-mailed to contact@ims-paris.org no later than 1 February 2009. In addition to the abstract, please submit full contact information, a CV and a tentative assessment of any audiovisual equipment required for your presentation.

The deadline for abstract submission is 1 February 2009. The IMS will review submissions and respond via e-mail by 15 February 2009. Titles of accepted papers will be made available on the IMS web site. Authors of accepted papers will be responsible for their own travel costs and conference registration fee (35 euros, reduced for students).

The IMS-Paris is an interdisciplinary and bilingual (French/English) organization founded to serve as a centre for medievalists who research, work, study, or travel to France. For more information about the IMS and the schedule of last year's Symposium, please see our website: www.ims-paris.org.

CFP: Living Culture - Conference on Ethnographies of Culture (Leeds)

LIVING CULTURES - CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHIES OF CULTURE
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
30 - 31 MARCH 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Institute for Communications Studies (ICS) and the Media Industries Research Centre (MIRC) at The University of Leeds invites papers for a 1½-day conference.

Keynote speakers:
Professor Les Back (Professor, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London), author of The Art of Listening (2007) and New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives (1996)

Professor Georgina Born (Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Music, University of Cambridge), author of Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (2004) and Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde (1995)

Conference theme:
The ever-increasing importance of the cultural to the social brings with it a vital need to investigate the processes implicated in contemporary meaning making, symbolic consumption, production and mediation. Recent scholarship from across the social sciences has sought to take up this challenge by examining the multifariousness of cultural materials-in-use, continuities and ruptures in the production/consumption of culture, the expanded purview of cultural policy and the effects of an expanding 'cultural economy'.

Through its careful attention to the irreducibility of human experience, ethnography has revealed an enduring ability to usefully intervene in debates within these arenas, making explorations into culture and cultural practice a quasi-specialism of ethnographic study. Yet how might 21st century ethnography better attune itself to the opportunities and challenges implied by attempts to understand contemporary culture and cultural experience 'from the inside'? Indeed, what limitations or boundaries are implied by efforts to study different cultural practices through ethnography and what might this mean for ethnography's contribution to social theory?

Contributions are invited from ethnographers willing to reflect on such questions and to share the methodological, substantive and theoretical insights gleaned, as well as the problems encountered, in the course of their own ethnographies of culture.

The conference should be of interest to scholars and particularly ethnographers from within sociology and social policy, media and communications studies, cultural studies, social/cultural anthropology and other allied disciplines.
Proposal deadline: abstracts (250 words max) should be sent, by Friday 16th January 2009, to the organising committee at: email: ics-conferences@leeds.ac.uk or mail to: Dr Eleri Pound, Living Cultures Conference, Institute of Communications Studies, 16 Clarendon Place, The University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

Organising committee: Dr Mark Rimmer (convenor), Professor David Hesmondhalgh, Dr Chris Paterson, Dr Eleri Pound, Anna Zoellner, all of the Media Industries Research Centre, University of Leeds.

CFP: Internet Attractions - AHRC Workshop on Ephemeral Media (Nottingham)

INTERNET ATTRACTIONS: ONLINE VIDEO AND USER-GENERATED EPHEMERA
AHRC WORKSHOP ON EPHEMERAL MEDIA
UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
23 - 24 JUNE 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS – 10th DECEMBER 2008
http://www.ephemeralmedia.co.uk/

Key speakers: Professor Nick Couldry (Goldsmiths), Professor Barbara Klinger (Indiana), Hugh Hancock (Strange Company), Emily Renshaw-Smith (Current TV - to be confirmed)

The emergence of new media technologies in the 1990s and 2000s, specifically the rise of digital and Internet technology, has been linked to fundamental changes in the media environment, shaping newly emerging circuits of production and consumption and propagating a cultural landscape where media seem available everywhere and all the time. This AHRC-sponsored workshop examines a particular feature of our accelerated media world - the growth of the brief or ‘ephemeral’ texts that exist beyond and between the films, television programmes, and radio broadcasts more commonly isolated for analysis.

What does ephemeral mean? In the context of the workshop it connotes short-form media (i.e. texts that are no more than a few minutes long) but also media which are fleeting in the way they circulate, or that are often overlooked within mainstream academic study. ‘Ephemeral media’ offers a rubric to designate and explore some of the key strategies, forms and practices that are helping producers and publics alike to negotiate today’s fast-changing mediascape. More generally, it invites historical and theoretical reflection on the significance of screen ephemera - on those forms of screen culture that, whilst momentary, remain active components of media experience.

The first workshop in the series focuses on user-generated ephemera, in particular the proliferation of online video. The emerging digital media environment has created new opportunities for user-generated content to achieve broad distribution and so create a public of users. This has been typified, and enabled, by recent phenomena such as YouTube. The fleeting and competing nature of user-generated content has placed particular emphasis on the role of media performance - what can be understood broadly as a display of communicative competence for assessment by an audience. The workshop will examine the status and significance of user-generated ephemera (in particular online video) and the kinds of performance inscribed herein.

Questions under discussion might include: How is performance framed in user-generated ephemera? How is user-generated ephemera assessed and discussed by audiences? How does the temporality of circulation on the Internet shape the kind of publics that are convened around user-generated ephemera? How do ephemeral media performances represent national, regional, ethnic identity? How are questions of authorship understood in forms that frequently involve the reworking of existing material? What role do “gatekeepers” play in filtering the user-generated performances that are distributed to online audiences?

The workshop is interested in, but not limited to, the following media forms and issues:

* Production and genre – creative amateur practices, technologies, genres involved in making online video; the relation between amateur and professional media production
* Performance and address – styles of online acting, dance, musical performance; projections of gesture and voice within online video and other user-generated ephemera (e.g. webcams, online pornography, blogging)
* Sensory communication – the use of sound and image: audiovisual methods and strategies
* media environments - the relation of user-generated ephemera to continuities/changes in the media landscape; historical precursors to online video and user-generated ephemera
* Audiences – online communities and the construction of user hierarchies; questions of authorship and negotiation in “bottom up” forms of ephemeral media; dynamics of cultural borrowing and authorship in online remakes, mashups, and machinima
* Distribution and Intellectual Property - the role of gate keepers and cultural intermediaries; questions of censorship, policy and legislation relating to ephemeral media production, distribution and consumption
* critical methodologies – the means and possibilities of studying user-generated ephemera


The ephemeral media workshop is part of the AHRC’s ‘Beyond Text’ research programme and is designed to facilitate discussion in a small group environment. It can provide travel (up to £100), accommodation, and subsistence costs to all accepted participants. To apply for the workshop, please send a 250 word paper proposal and a short biography highlighting relevant research interests or publications to generalenquiries@ephemeralmedia.co.uk by 10th December 2008.

CFP: Musicological Explorations (journal)

MUSICOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS
UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Musicology graduate students of the University of Victoria invite scholars to submit articles for the Spring 2009 volume of _Musicological Explorations_.

Run by the graduate students of the School of Music, this journal’s mandate is to provide a forum for scholarly work in musicology and related arts. Previously unpublished papers on topics of musicology, performance practices, ethnomusicology, music education, and interdisciplinary studies are all welcome.

The Deadlines for submission is Friday, January 16th, 2009.

Please visit the _Musicological Explorations_ website for submission guidelines. http://finearts.uvic.ca/music/me_journal/

Any questions may be directed to the Managing Editor, Annalise Smith, at mjournal at uvic.ca

CFP: Scalable Audio-Content Analysis (journal)

SCALABLE AUDIO-CONTENT ANALYSIS
CALL FOR PAPERS

The amount of easily-accessible audio, either in the form of large collections of audio or audio-video recordings or in the form of streaming media, has increased exponentially in recent times. However, this audio is not standardized: much of it is noisy, recordings are frequently not clean, and most of it is not labeled. The audio content covers a large range of categories including sports, music and songs, speech, and natural sounds. There is, therefore, a need for algorithms that allow us make sense of these data, to store, process, categorize, summarize, identify, and retrieve them quickly and accurately.

In this special issue, we invite papers that present novel approaches to problems such as (but not limited to):

o Audio similarity
o Audio categorization
o Audio classification
o Indexing and retrieval
o Semantic tagging
o Audio event detection
o Summarization
o Mining

We are especially interested in work that addresses real-world issues such as:

o Scalable and efficient algorithms
o Audio analysis under noisy and real-world conditions
o Classification with uncertain labeling
o Invariance to recording conditions
o On-line and real-time analysis of audio
o Algorithms for very large audio databases

We encourage theoretical or application-oriented papers that highlight exploitation of such techniques in practical systems/products.

Before submission, authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/asmp/guidelines.html. Authors should follow the EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing manuscript format described at the journal site http://www.hindawi.com/journals/asmp/.
Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/, according to the following timetable:

Manuscript Due June 1, 2009
First Round of Reviews September 1, 2009
Publication Date December 1, 2009

Lead Guest Editor
Bhiksha Raj, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL), Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; bhiksha@cs.cmu.edu

Guest Editors

o Paris Smaragdis, Advanced Technology Labs, Adobe Systems Inc. Newton, MA 02466, USA; paris@media.mit.edu
o Malcolm Slaney, Yahoo! Research, Santa Clara, CA 95054; Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University, CA 94305-8180, USA; malcolm@ieee.org
o Chung-Hsien Wu, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan; chwu@csie.ncku.edu.tw
o Liming Chen, Department of Mathematics and Informatics, Ecole Centrale de Lyon University of Lyon, 69006 Lyon, France; liming.chen@ec-lyon.fr
o Hyoung-Gook Kim, Intelligent Multimedia Signal Processing Lab, Kwangwoon University, Seoul 139-701, South Korea; hkim@kw.ac.kr

Music and Machines IX: Resistant Material (Upcoming conference, Newcastle)

MUSIC AND MACHINES IX: RESISTANT MATERIAL
NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY
15 -1 6 JANUARY 2009

The "International Centre for Music Studies" (ICMuS) and "Culture Lab" at Newcastle University announce a two-day symposium on resistant materials in musical creativity as part of the "Music and Machines" research series.

Musical practices encounter many sites of resistance/resistivity
- the engagement with or overcoming of physiological restrictions
- the technological limitations of instruments, voices, computer systems, and other performance media
- constraints imposed by musico-theoretical systems such as "common practice" tonality and other formalistic issues
- the unpredictability and/or ambiguity of some of the newer creative tools such as interactive software, circuit-bending or distributed performance systems
- the critical dissonances that must be negotiated in much interdisciplinary collaboration

Developing out of a series of research events that began in 2004, "Music and Machines IX: Resistant Material" pulls together some of the different ways that contemporary musicians and theorists have thematized or had to work through the issue of resistant materials.
As well as core members of the CETL-funded ICMuS research grouping in Postvernacular Music, the symposium will include guest presenters from Glasgow Caledonian University, Royal Conservatory in The Hague, University of East Anglia, Edinburgh University, Culture Lab
Newcastle, and the Psychology and Philosophy departments at Newcastle University.

Sessions will take the form of short presentations by invited presenters, followed by round table discussions, with members of "the audience" actively encouraged to become involved. Session
presentations will include position statements, project reports, theoretical perspectives, and live performances. There are also live concerts each evening held in Culture Lab.

Participants will include
Paul Bell (ICMuS - Culture Lab)
David Clarke (ICMuS)
John Ferguson (ICMuS - Culture Lab)
Bennett Hogg (ICMuS)
Lars Iyer (Philosophy, Newcastle)
Raymond MacDonald (Psychology, Glasgow)
Peter Nelson (Music, Edinburgh University)
Sally Jane Norman (Culture Lab, Newcastle)
Joel Ryan (Royal Conservatory in The Hague)
Simon Waters (UEA)
Nick Williams (ICMuS - Culture Lab)
Graeme Wilson (Psychology, Newcastle)

Topics covered will include turntablism in free improvisation, learning Indian Classical Music, ambiguity and indeterminacy in bent circuits, modelling resistivity in virtual environments, formalism and subjectivity, the instrument in free improvisation, philosophical and cultural-theoretical perspectives on ideas of resistance in musical materials, and issues raised by the development of interfaces between musical performers and digital technologies.

A conference fee of £10 to cover coffee and tea is payable to Culture Lab, Newcastle. For registration please contact Carine Aguet at carine.aguet@ncl.ac.uk

For further information please contact Dr. Bennett Hogg at bennett.hogg@ncl.ac.uk

Details of registration procedures and a more detailed outline of the event will be posted on the "Culture Lab, Newcastle" website in due course. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab

CFP: Performa: Conference on Performance Studies (Portugal)

PERFORMA: CONFERENCE ON PERFORMANCE STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF AVEIRO (PORTUGAL)
14 -1 6 MAY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro (Aveiro, Portugal) will host, from the 14th to the 16th of May 2009, PERFORMA, a conference on performance studies.
The keynote speaker will be Prof. Bruno Nettl, from University of Illinois
Submissions are invited on any aspect of performance studies such as the psychology of performance, philosophy and performance, music pedagogy, musicology, ethnomusicology, analysis, and improvisation.
We welcome abstracts of a maximum of 250 words for:
Paper presentations: Papers should last a maximum of 20 minutes in length, including all audio/visual illustrations, plus 10 minutes for questions.
Pre-formed Panels: Please submit abstracts with each named speaker and their institutional affiliation. Panels should last 1 hour and 30 minutes, including all audio/visual illustrations and time for questions.
Lecture Recitals: should last 45 minutes, including all audio/visual illustrations and time for questions. Proposal submissions should be accompanied by a short curriculum of the presenter.
Workshops: abstracts should include information about duration of the workshop.
Poster presentations

The submission deadline is January 25th, 2009. Abstracts should be sent to performa at ca.ua.pt
Abstracts will be reviewed by a panel, and presenters will be advised as to their acceptance or otherwise by February 20th, 2009.

Conference site: http://performa.web.ua.pt/

Thursday 20 November 2008

CFP/CFC: Music and Memory (Univ Texas at Austin)

MUSIC AND MEMORY
9TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
7 MARCH 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS/CALL FOR COMPOSITIONS/SCORES


GAMMA-UT, the Graduate Association of Music and Musicians at UT, announces its ninth annual conference, “Music and Memory,” to be held on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at The University of Texas at Austin. Graduate students from the areas of music theory, composition, musicology, ethnomusicology, and performance will meet to share their research and composers will present their works in a concert to be held that evening.

This year’s keynote speaker is Aaron Fox. Dr. Fox is an associate professor of ethnomusicology at Columbia University, where he is also chair of the Department of Music. His publications include the 2004 book Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture (Duke University Press) as well as articles on country music, music/language relationships, and working-class culture. Dr. Fox is currently working on a musical heritage repatriation project of field recordings with the Iñupiat community of Barrow, Alaska.

For more information, please visit our website at http://gammaut.music.utexas.edu.

Call for Papers

GAMMA-UT is soliciting student papers in the areas of music theory, musicology, and ethnomusicology. Papers may deal with any aspect of music research and analysis, particularly those topics that relate to the theme of “Music and Memory.” Prospective presenters should submit an abstract of 250 words or less to gammaut@mail.music.utexas.edu by Thursday, January 1st, 2009. Please include your name, email address, mailing address, institutional affiliation and student status. Papers are to be approximately twenty minutes in length and will be followed by a ten-minute question session. Applicants will be notified of the program committee’s decision via e-mail by Sunday, February 1st, 2009.

Questions can be directed to the conference chair Kim Kattari via email: gammaut@mail.music.utexas.edu

CFP: Musical Heritage: Movement and Contacts International Conference

MUSICAL HERITAGE: MOVEMENT AND CONTACTS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
FACULTY OF MUSIC, UNIVERSITE DE MONTREAL
29 OCTOBER - 1 NOVEMBER 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS


The Laboratoire de recherche sur les musiques du monde (LRMM - OICCM) in association with the Canadian Society for Traditional Music (CSTM) invites you to its international conference, Musical Heritage: Movement and Contacts, in Montréal (Canada) from October 29th to November 1st 2009. Abstract submissions are now accepted.

Submission deadline: 2 Feb 2009

Full details: marie-helene.pichette at umontreal.ca http://lrmm.musique.umontreal.ca/

Tuesday 18 November 2008

RMA Dent Medal Study Day and AGM (Upcoming event)

RMA DENT MEDAL STUDY DAY and ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
INSTITUTE OF MUSICAL RESEARCH, SENATE HOUSE, LONDON
SATURDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2008
10.00 - 17.30


Institute of Musical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London, Room N336 (North Block, Third Floor) Directions at www.music.sas.ac.uk

Speakers: Georgina Born (Dent medallist, 2008), Rachel Beckles Willson, David Hesmondhalgh, Derek Scott, George E. Lewis, Martin Stokes

Full programme at www.rma.ac.uk

Advance registration essential if you require lunch: please email Valerie James music@sas.ac.uk by Wednesday 26 November.

If you intend to come but do not require lunch, advance registration will help us plan refreshments: please email as above.

Attendance and refreshments: RMA members free; non-members £10
Lunch: £10

All monies payable in cash on arrival.

Friday 14 November 2008

CFP: International Conference on Music Performance Analysis (Lucerne)

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MUSIC PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
LUCERNE (SWITZERLAND)
1 - 2 JULY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts organizes a conference in the field of music
performance analysis. The conference will take place during the annual meeting of the
“International Association of Schools of Jazz” in Lucerne, and it will attract a mixed audience of
jazz students/teachers and researchers in the field of performance. The conference consists of two symposia:

Symposium 1: Perspectives on ‘Body & Soul’
Wednesday, July 1, 2009, 13:30-18:30
‘Body & Soul’ (1930) is famed to be the most recorded American popular song of all time: In 1980, Gary Giddins counted nearly 3000 recorded versions of the song, and the three decades since then have added considerably to this impressive number. The attraction of this intricate melody with its harmonically surprising bridge doesn’t seem to fade away. The papers of the symposium analyse recorded performances of the tune; they describe individual responses of musicians and singers to the composition, the lyrics and to earlier renditions of ‘Body & Soul’.

Symposium 2: Methods of music performance analysis
Thursday, July 2, 2009, 09:00-16:30
The analysis of music performance is a relatively new field in music research, and the methods of
analysis are still in an experimental stage. The papers of this symposium present innovative
analytical procedures and demonstrate the scope and limit of these methods by applying them to
concrete musical examples of different genres (examples of both popular and classical music are
welcome).

Call for papers
Researchers and musicians, who are interested to contribute a paper, send their abstract of approximately 400 words to Olivier Senn (olivier.senn@hslu.ch) before December 14, 2008. The
presentations (30’ each) and discussions will be held in English. All presented papers will be
published within the conference proceedings.

CFP: American Independent Cinema: Past, Present, and Future (Liverpool)

AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
LIVERPOOL, UK
8 - 10 MAY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

An international conference co-organised by Claire Molloy (Liverpool John Moores University) and Yannis Tzioumakis (University of Liverpool).

This is an updated call for papers. We are delighted to announce that the confirmed keynote speakers at this conference will be: Warren Buckland (Oxford Brookes University), Geoff King (Brunel University), Peter Kramer (University of East Anglia), Steve Neale (University of Exeter) Janet Staiger (University of Texas at Austin).

In recent years the field of American independent cinema has enjoyed particular critical attention. The publication of a number of studies on the subject and the development of courses that examine American independent cinema as a separate object of study from mainstream Hollywood cinema has demonstrated that American independent cinema is a distinct discursive category and therefore deserves to be explored in depth.

Despite the recent critical activity, however, there is still very little actual research undertaken in the field. To this day, most of the work on American independent cinema has focused on the period ranging from the 1960s to contemporary times while the lion's share of the critics' attention has gone to a relatively small number of canonical independent filmmakers or to certain paradigmatic independent films. Although the establishment of canons and paradigms in independent cinema has been extremely useful, especially because it identified the field as worthy of scholarly attention, it also delimited the field substantially.

This conference wants to rethink American cinema through the concept of 'independence' and the range of definitions that such a term encompasses. As such, this conference hopes to attract research in the field that extends far beyond conventional critical approaches that tend to focus on key filmmakers, often starting from Cassavetes and moving to more recent examples, and instead look at American cinema in general with a view of questioning particular practices while also offering a number of case studies from various historical moments. Topics might include but are certainly not limited to:

* cinema at Poverty Row
* independent filmmaking within the "confines" of the studio system
* exploitation filmmaking
* ethnic filmmaking
* independent producers/distributors
* classics divisions vs contemporary independents
* the impact of technological change on independent filmmaking
* independent film financing, marketing, advertising and publicity
* institutionalising independence

Whilst we will consider papers that deal with any aspect of independence, we particularly welcome papers that seek to revise existing histories of American cinema, especially by re-opening cases of films, filmmakers and companies that hitherto have been considered as part of an increasingly loosely defined mainstream Hollywood. One of the key aims of this conference is to chart the past, present and future modes of film practice in the independent sector and to account for the plurality of forms and guises in which independent filmmaking has manifested in the United States. In this respect we hope the conference will facilitate a much needed re-evaluation of American cinema under the rubric of independence.

Please send proposals of up to 300 words to both C.Molloy@ljmu.ac.uk and Y.Tzioumakis@liverpool.ac.uk

Deadline for submission of proposals is Friday 12 December 2008.

CFP: Acting out (Reading)

'ACTING OUT'
UNIVERSITY OF READING
20 MARCH 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Acting Out - A symposium on Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation

"Clearly films depend on a form of communication whereby meanings are acted out." (Naremore, Acting in the Cinema, p. 2)

"I would like to say that what I am doing in reading a film is performing it (if you wish, performing it inside myself)" (Cavell, Pursuits of Happiness, 1981, pp. 37-38.)

Keynote Speaker - Andrew Klevan, (St. Anne's College, University of Oxford) - Film Performance: From Achievement to Appreciation (Wallflower Press)

This one-day symposium seeks to provide a forum for scholars of screen acting to meet and progress the spate of recent work on performance on film. We would like to explore how we draw out performance through an interrogation of the relationship between performance, inference and interpretation, but will consider proposals on other screen performance related issues.

As viewers we frequently respond instinctively to the material and kinetic details of the performer within their fictional world. In consequence, the role of inference could be said to be indivisible from interpretation. But how important is that moment between engaging with a performance and analysing it? How do you find it and observe it?

The perceived problem of subjectivity is the ghost of film studies, haunting many analyses but rarely addressed directly. How do discourses around spectatorship effect discussion of performance? Could it be that the study of performance is uniquely disposed to alerting us to the complexity of engagement?

The broader implication of these thoughts is, how do YOU 'frame' performance? And how are different analytical frameworks (e.g. phenomenological, social role-play, practice-based approaches, close analysis) specifically equipped to conceptualise these processes?

Equally, what is the role of inference in the process and production of performance? What is left unsaid and/or assumed in performance?

Arguably, many performances communicate in non-verbal ways and leave a certain amount to the imagination but how does this vary between performance styles? More histrionic, melodramatic or ostensive performances are frequently thought of as offering more privileged access to thoughts and feelings or even a transparently clear communication of meaning. What
kinds of assumptions underpin this way of thinking about performance? And where does this leave more contained or repressive performances?

Deadline for Proposals - Monday 22 December 2008

Please contact Ceri Hovland and Lucy Fife Donaldson at actingout@reading.ac.uk with any questions or if you would like to discuss any initial proposal ideas.
 
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