Upcoming Conferences I

I'm still not sure as whether this will be useful long term but to invoke the now-innate organisational mantra of 'research facilitation' I will begin compiling fortnightly a list of upcoming conferences and various CFP.

MUSIC AND THE MELODRAMATIC AESTHETIC
UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
5-7 SEPTEMBER 2008

The early nineteenth-century stage genre of melodrama, as exemplified by Pixérécourt’s mélodrames à grand spectacle, expressed the moral struggle between good and evil through the interrelationship of music, speech, gesture and tableau in scenes of high emotion. This cross-disciplinary conference (Music, Theatre, Film) is the culmination of an AHRC-funded Research Workshop exploring melodrama as a performance process and an aesthetic, and tracing the nature of its influence on later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century drama - including opera, ballet, pantomime and early sound and film recordings.

The keynote speaker will be Prof Jacqueline Waeber (Duke University). There will be a screening of the 1923 silent _Within the Law_ (dir. Frank Lloyd, starring Norma Talmadge) accompanied by Philip Carli. Routledge will be sponsoring a wine reception.

Full details, including programme, abstracts and a booking form can be found at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/music/mma/conference.html Conference convenors: Sarah Hibberd (Music) and Jake Smith (Film & TV Studies), University of Nottingham

CONCEPTS OF CREATIVITY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, 6-7 SEPTEMBER
Full details of the symposium schedule, contributors, local arrangements and registration process can be found via the introductory page at: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/arts/creativityconference

CULTIVATING BRITONS: CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITAIN, 1901 TO 1936
OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY
19 SEPTEMBER 2008

Scholars have in recent years made much of the idea of a "long nineteenth century", and have investigated the twentieth-century remnants and legacies of Victorianism, yet the impact of the Edwardian era has been largely bypassed. The aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to reassess British culture across the period from 1901 to 1936 in the light of the Edwardian inheritance. As the title of the conference suggests, we are particularly interested in considering the extent to which an attempt to "cultivate Britons" (often regarded as a distinctively Victorian endeavour) continued into, and metamorphosed during, the early twentieth century. We believe that this idea can most fruitfully be explored by bringing together scholars with research interests in early-twentieth-century British culture from disciplines including History, Literature, Music, Art History, Gender Studies, and Theology.

The Edwardian period between 1901 and 1910 has, by reason of chronological accident, frequently been treated as a discrete and unique period in the history of Britain. Framed by the death of Queen Victoria and the arms race which foreshadowed the Great War, the long-anticipated reign of Edward VII has since been conceptualized and memorialized in a variety of ways: as the last, tired gasp of ‘Victorianism’; as a prelapsarian ‘long summer’ brutally curtailed by the guns of 1914; or as an authentic experiment with an ambitiously ‘modern’ set of cultural, moral, and political values. The brief, uncoronated reign of Edward VIII is not usually discussed in the same context as that of his grandfather – partly because of its brevity, but also because of the cultural and experiential disjunction assumed to separate them. However, the striking personal similarities between these ‘playboy’ princes, as well as the air of unfulfilled potentiality associated with their respective eras present fruitful starting points for a re-evaluation of the discernible continuities and ruptures in the social and cultural life of Britain in the first three and a half decades of the twentieth century.

Booking for the interdisciplinary ‘Cultivating Britons’ conference is now open. A booking form can be downloaded from the conference website: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/conference/cultivating_britons/

Delegates should note that the booking form must be returned by 29 August if lunch is required.

This is a collaborative venture between Oxford Brookes University and Royal Holloway, University of London. Further information may be found at the conference website.


CALISTO A LE STELLE: CAVALLI AND THE STAGING OF VENETIAN OPERA
GRESHAM COLLEGE, HOLBORN

MONDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2008
10am - 5pm with concert at 6pm
An IMR Study Day in association with Gresham College

Chair: Ellen Rosand
Convenors: Alvaro Torrente (Complutense, Madrid) and Dinko Fabris (Basilicata and Salento)Speakers to include: Ellen Rosand (Yale), Wendy Heller (Princeton), Jennifer Williams-Brown (Grinnell College), Beth Glixon (Kentucky), Jonathan Glixon (Kentucky), Dinko Fabris (Basilicata and Salento), Hendrik Schulze (Heidelberg), Anna Tedesco (Palermo) and Alvaro Torrente (Complutense, Madrid)

The day will end with a concert of music by Cavalli performed by students from the Royal College of Music, directed from the violin by Adrian Butterfield. A free drinks reception will follow the concert.Further details at http://www.gresham.ac.uk/ and http://www.music.sas.ac.uk/ To book places at the following event by emailing music@sas.ac.uk


OPERA, EXOTICISM AND VISUAL CULTURE: THE FIN DE SIÈCLE AND ITS LEGACY
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON (STEWART HOUSE, 32 RUSSELL SQUARE, WC1)
THURSDAY 25 - SATURDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2008

Organizer: Dr Hyunseon Lee (IGRS, University of London)

Key speakers include: Sir Jonathan Miller, Prof Marcia Citron (Rice University, Houston/Texas), Prof Erika Fischer-Lichte (FU Berlin), Prof Anselm Gerhard (University Bern), Prof Hervé Lacombe (University Metz), Prof Herbert Lachmayer (Da Ponte Institute, Vienna).

Organized by the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies in association with the Institute of Musical Research. For more information on programme and how to register please go to http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/events/conference/conf_opera_.htm


MUSIC IN PURCELL'S LONDON: "Only Purcell e're shall equal Blow"
THE BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON
SATURDAY 4 OCTOBER 2008, 10AM-5PM

The Purcell Society and British Library are pleased to announce that booking is now open for this study day on the music of Henry Purcell and his contemporaries John Blow and Giovanni Battista Draghi. The study day marks the 300th anniversary of Blow and Draghi's deaths in 1708, and the start of a year-long celebration in the UK of the 350th anniversary of Purcell's birth (which occurred in 1658 or 1659).

Keynote speaker: Professor Sir Curtis Price, KBE

Other speakers include Rebecca Herissone, Christopher Hogwood, Peter Holman, Andrew Pinnock, Robert Thompson, Bryan White and Bruce Wood. The day will also include performances of music by Purcell, Blow and Draghi.

Tickets: £12 (£10 concessions).
For booking information and programme details please see
http://www.henrypurcell.org.uk/study_day.html

Study day hosted by the Purcell Society and the British Library. Further information is available from:
Dr Sandra Tuppen, Music Collections, British Library
Tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7500
email: sandra.tuppen@bl.uk


ADATING BYRON
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
4-5 DECEMBER 2008
The Byron Centre, University of Manchester

Few figures have captured the creative imagination to the extent of Lord Byron. Since the publication of the first instalment of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, virtually every age, nation and art-form has responded to his life and works. This conference will examine a wide range of adaptations of Byron over the past two centuries, interrogating his changing reception and considering how his poetry has been reconceived by being brought into contact with new, non-literary contexts and media.

Papers will discuss Byron in relation to, among other things: ballet, German song, Verdi, Mendelssohn, England, France, Italy, television drama and MySpace. Speakers include Shona Allen (Cologne), Bernard Beatty (Liverpool), Lorrie Corano (Missouri), Susan Rutherford (Manchester), Gilles Soubigou (Sorbonne), Michael Sinatra-Eberle (Montréal) and Stephen Zani (Lamar, Texas). The conference will also feature two lunchtime musical recitals on Byron-related themes, and a Byron dinner in Manchester’s city centre.

For further information, please contact Dr Laura Tunbridge, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures (Music), Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, University of Manchester, Coupland Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK (Laura.Tunbridge at manchester.ac.uk).

‘Adapting Byron’ is the inaugural conference of The Byron Centre, the University of Manchester’s new interdisciplinary study centre devoted to advancing the study of all aspects of Lord Byron: his life, writings, times, worldwide reception and international influence. Launched in 2007, the Centre offers a wealth of study opportunities at MA and PhD level in the fields of English, European and American Literature, Nineteenth-Century European Music and Italian Literature, History and Culture.

The Centre also has its own major Byron Archive, located at the historic John Rylands Deansgate Library, with substantial holdings of early editions, related publications and material from around the globe relating to Byron’s world-wide reception.

For more information about The Byron Centre, please visit our webpage (given below) or contact the Centre’s Director, Dr Alan Rawes, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures (English and American Studies), Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester, Manchester M19 3PL, UK (alan.rawes at manchester.ac.uk).

The Byron Centre: http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/subjectareas/englishamericanstudies/research/ByronCentre/