PhD Studentship: Methods and Influence of the Folk organisation Folkworks (Newcastle University)

PHD STUDENTSHIP: METHODS AND INFLUENCE OF THE FOLK MUSIC ORGANISATION FOLKWORKS

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY / THE SAGE GATESHEAD

DEADLINE: 26 JUNE 2009

The International Centre for Music Studies at Newcastle University, in partnership with The Sage Gateshead, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a PhD studentship as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain's Collaborative Doctoral Awards scheme. We are seeking to award a fully-funded three-year studentship, commencing 21 September 2009, to research the methods and influence of the folk music organisation Folkworks. Further details are given below.

Supervisors: Dr Vic Gammon, Dr Felicity Laurence, Mr Alistair Anderson School: International Centre for Music Studies (School of Arts and Cultures) in collaboration with The Sage Gateshead Funded by: AHRC

Since 2000 Folkworks has been integrated into The Sage Gateshead. It has established a national reputation for the promotion of folk and traditional music through its educational work and through presenting some of the world's best traditional musicians in concerts, tours and festival events. The aim of this project is to investigate the innovative character of Folkworks and evaluate its practices and success factors.

The main areas of research will be:

*The development of Folkworks and other folk music development agencies in other countries, for example Ireland and Scotland.

*The characteristic forms of learning and participation in Folkworks' activities including the relationships of aurality and literacy in learning and transmission and compare these, in a historically-informed way, with learning and transmission in older traditional forms of music-making.

*The adaptation of Folkworks' learning and participation methods to meet the needs of different client groups, for example children, undergraduates and adult amateurs.

*The characteristics of Folkworks' tutors' interactional styles, their approach to accommodating different forms and degrees of musical competence within the same workshop and the social situations created in group sessions.

*The organisational culture of Folkworks both before and after its integration into The Sage Gateshead. This will include looking at future developments and considering the future of the philosophy and practices created through Folkworks in view of generational changes of personnel and organisational structure.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Candidates should have, or expect to achieve, a good Honours degree (minimum upper-second-class Honours) in music. You must have either an exceptional proven knowledge and ability in the field of folk and traditional music and a demonstrable aptitude for work in the area of pedagogical studies or an MA or MMus in music. This project may well suit someone who is an educator in the field and wants to develop research in this area.

An essential part of this project is being a participant-observer alongside The Sage Gateshead's staff on Folkworks projects so candidates must be practitioners in folk and traditional music.

VALUE OF THE AWARD AND ELIBILITY

Depending on how you meet the AHRC's eligibility criteria, you may receive a full or partial award. A full award covers tuition fees and an annual stipend of £14,440 (includes the AHRC stipend and an additional payment from The SAgE Gateshead). A partial award covers tuition fees only.

HOW TO APPLY

You must complete the University's postgraduate application form (www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/apply/applicationforms),selecting 'PhD School of Arts and Cultures (full time) - Music' as the programme of study and inserting the reference number SAC01. Your application should include a CV, covering letter and the contact

details of two academic referees. The covering letter (no more than one side of A4), must state the title of the studentship, quote the reference number SAC01 and state how your interests and experience relate to the project.

You should also send your CV, covering letter, and the names and addresses of two referees as email attachments to Jane Hagger, jane.hagger@ncl.ac.uk

Closing date for applications: Friday 26 June 2009

We intend to hold interviews on Tuesday 14 July. If you are unable to attend on this date please indicate this on your application.

Further Information: Informal enquires can be made via email to Dr Vic Gammon, vic.gammon@ncl.ac.uk

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