MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA MUSIC FORUM
RECENT WORK ON THE MUSIC OF AFGHANISTAN
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON - SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY
INSTITUTE OF MUSICAL RESEARCH
IN CONJUNCTION WITH
GOLDSMITHS AFGHANISTAN MUSIC UNIT
ROOM N336, SENATE HOUSE, LONDON, WC1E
7 NOVEMBER 2008
9.30am – 6.15pm
PROGRAMME
Registration from 9.30am
9.45am - Welcome
Session 1 (10 - 11.45am)
John Baily (Goldsmiths) ’Lâreh, naghma-ye kashâl, naghma-ye chahârtuk: A genre of Kabuli art music’
Razia Sultanova (SOAS)’Uzbek music in Afghanistan’
11.45am – 12.10pm tea/coffee
Session 2 (12.10 – 1pm)
Amina Yousofi (BBC World Service)’The Zamzama women’s music programme of the BBC World Service Afghanistan Stream’
1pm – Lunch break
Session 3 (2.30 - 4.15pm)
Christer Irgens-Møller (Denmark)’Music of Nuristan 1953-1970. A documentation of an eradicated culture, Recordings of the late Klaus Ferdinand and Lennart Edelberg.’
Veronica Doubleday (Brighton)’The Beloved and the Loved One: Gender issues and expressions of love in performances using chahârbeiti quatrains’
4.15pm Final discussion
4.30 – 5.15pm tea/coffee
5.15 – 6.15pm
The day will close with a performance of Afghan music by Veronica
Doubleday and John Baily
The Middle East and Central Asia Music forum is open to researchers, students and anyone interested in the music and culture of the region. In the spirit of fostering dialogue and interdiscplinarity, we hope that the issues discussed at the forum will be of interest to a broad audience, including musicologists, ethnomusicologists and other researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. In addition, we welcome those working on other aspects of Middle Eastern and Central Asian culture broadly speaking (dance, visual arts, media, film, literature, etc.)
Advance booking is requested via Valerie James at music[at] sas.ac.uk; a contribution to costs of £10 is requested on the door. Attendance for students and the unwaged is free.
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MUSIC LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTATION CENTRES (IAML)
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
5 – 10 JULY 2009
IAML will hold its annual conference 5-10 July 2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This will be a joint meeting with the International Musicological Society (IMS). While IAML conferences do not have themes, the focus of the IMS Symposium will be "Music: Notation and Sound". The IAML Programme Committee invites proposals of papers for this meeting which concern music, collections, and/or library issues that focus on Dutch libraries, music, and publishers, although presentations of a general nature are also welcome. We strongly encourage the submission of papers that focus on popular or traditional music of all genres and periods and their impact on libraries. The online submission form for proposals may be found at the following link:
http://www.iaml.info/activities/conferences/call_for_papers
Proposals must be submitted by 1 OCTOBER 2008 in order to be considered.
UNPICKING THE STRANDS: MUSIC RESOURCES IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY
BRITISH LIBRARY CONFERENCE CENTRE
7 OCTOBER 2008
Come along to this free one-day event which will help you make the best of the British Library’s music collections and resources.
All are welcome but you should note that the sessions will be aimed at those who have recently begun using the Library’s collections and need access to the British Library’s music resources, in particular, those who have recently registered for postgraduate study in music at masters or doctoral level and also final-year undergraduate music students.
To register please e-mail music-events@bl.uk stating your name, institution, and contact telephone number.
Timetable
10:30 Registration and coffee
11:00 Introduction (Richard Chesser)
11:30 Music Collections in the British Library (Steve Cork)
12:30 Lunch break and opportunity to view exhibitions
13:30 Using the British Library Sound Archive (Antony Gordon)
14:15 Working with Music Manuscripts (Sandra Tuppen)
15:15 Tea
15:30 Electronic Resources for Musicologists (Clemens Gresser)
16:30–17:00 Close
Space is limited and therefore advance registration is essential.
Music Collections in the British Library (Steve Cork)
An introduction to the scope of the music collections in the British Library, including advice on how to locate, access and use items in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room. This session will include useful information to help the researcher when searching for and locating items in the Integrated Catalogue, consulting items in the reading room, requesting copies and using the open-access collection.
Using the Sound Archive (Antony Gordon)
The session will introduce researchers to the breadth of the British Library’s recorded sound resources and includes advice on how to access them, together with practical guidance on using the Sound Archive's catalogue to locate recordings.
Working with Music Manuscripts (Sandra Tuppen)
This session will focus on locating and using music manuscripts in the British Library and to some extent in other collections. Guidance will be given on using the online manuscripts catalogue (MOLCAT), the scope of the music manuscripts collection in the British Library as well as some information about other databases useful to the researcher needing to access music manuscripts (including RISM).
Electronic Resources for Musicologists in the BL (Clemens Gresser)
This session will introduce you to the most frequently used online databases and bibliographic tools (for example RILM, RIPM, JSTOR, the Music Index etc.) In addition to a concise overview, a comparison of some of these databases (such as RILM and the Music Index) for several scenarios will illustrate their strengths and weaknesses.
FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STUDENTS OF SYSTEMATIC MUSICOLOGY (SYSMUS08)
UNIVERSITY OF GRAZ
14 - 15 NOVEMBER 2008
Please visit the conference website for detailed information on how to register: http://www.uni-graz.at/muwi3www/SysMus08/
Keynote speakers:
- Gerhard Widmer (Johannes Kepler University Linz and ÖFAI, Vienna, Austria)
- Werner Goebl (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
- Silke Borgstedt (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany)
Special lecture:
- Rachel Foulds (Goldsmiths College, London, UK), editor of British Postgraduate Musicology
Pre-conference workshops (November 13):
- Presentation and quality control in music psychology (Richard Parncutt, University of Graz)
- Empirical research methods in systematic musicology (Annemarie Seither-Preisler, University of Graz)
- English pronunciation (Ingrid Pfandl-Buchegger, University of Graz)
- Academic writing skills in English (Martina Elicker, University ofGraz)
RADICAL MUSICOLOGY
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO VOLUME 3 (2008)
We are still accepting contributions for volume three (2008) of the online journal Radical Musicology. The journal was established to provide a forum for progressive thinking across the whole field of musical studies, and to encourage work that draws on any and all relevant disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.
As well as scholarly articles, the journal's editorial collective is also keen to solicit proposals for special themed issues. In the interests of furthering dialogue within the field of music studies, Radical Musicology also welcomes thoughtful responses to articles.
All enquiries should be directed to enquiries@radical-musicology.org.uk. For submission guidelines follow this link: http://www.radical-musicology.org.uk/notes.htm
Dr Ian Biddle
i.d.biddle@ncl.ac.uk
International Centre for Music Studies (ICMuS) University of Newcastle upon Tyne
tel: +191 222 8844
fax: +191 222 5242
TRANSMISSION: CINEMA/PSYCHOANALYSIS
EMMANUEL COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE ARTS PICTUREHOUSE
CRASSH
16 – 18 SEPTEMBER 2008
This conference explores the history and future of the relationship between cinema and psychoanalysis, domains that have emerged as intertwined in both theory and practice. From mutual fascination to misunderstanding, transmission between cinema and psychoanalysis has produced, and continues to produce a wealth of approaches to film criticism and filmmaking.
Guest speakers include internationally-renowned academics Kaja Silverman (Berkeley) and Mieke Bal (Amsterdam). The latter will present a screening of her documentary BECOMING VERA (2008). Philippe Grandrieux, one of the proponents of a dark, extreme new French cinema, will present his challenging recent film UNE VIE NOUVELLE (2002).
The event is an innovative collaboration between the Cambridge Film Festival and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), at the University of Cambridge. It is also supported by Emmanuel College, Trinity College and the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council).
The programme features a mixture of screenings and talks, and all are welcome to participate. The intention is to bring together academics, filmmakers, clinicial practitioners and the general public. More information, the full programme and delegate registration forms are available at: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/162/.
The film screenings listed below are also open to non-delegates.
16th September, 4.30pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1RX Free entrance
ECOLOGY
Director: Sarah Turner. UK 2007. 97 mins.
Through internal monologues and scenes of daily life infused with underlying violence, the themes of the environment, family psychic structures and technology are intertwined, in an original take on psychoanalytical questions. The film asks us to reconsider ‘waste’, ‘need’ and ‘survival’, suggesting that family existence is as precarious an ecology as the environment.
The screening will be presented by the director and by Professor Elizabeth Cowie (University of Kent).
17th September, 4.15pm, Arts Picturehouse (double bill)
LAID DOWN
Director: Emily Cooper. UK 2007. 15 mins.
Shot in 16mm film, LAID DOWN is a short film exploring the world through the eyes of a newborn baby. Rooted in psychoanalytic understanding, the film raises questions about our earliest formative experiences. The film will be introduced by the director.
LA VIE NOUVELLE
Director: Philippe Grandrieux. France 2002. 102 mins. French and English with English subtitles Grandrieux is one of the most innovative francophone filmmakers to emerge in recent years. LA VIE NOUVELLE, his second feature, generated a storm of critical acclaim on its release. A terrifyingly intense vision of a world where human bodies are commodities, the film tells of an American soldier’s engulfment within the eastern European sex trade. Grandrieux’s unique cinematography evokes an inhuman underworld even in the sombre light of day.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Philippe Grandrieux.
18th September, 11.15am, Arts Picturehouse Free Entrance
BECOMING VERA
Director: Mieke Bal. The Netherlands 2008. 52 mins.
This is an exceptional opportunity to see a powerful film by renowned cultural theorist, Mieke Bal. Born of a Cameroonian father and French-born mother of Russian descent, three year-old Vera is growing up in Paris. This documentary shows how, although seemingly unaware of her cultural inheritance, Vera is constantly responding to its transmission.
The screening will be accompanied by a talk by Professor Mieke Bal.
LYRICA SOCIETY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
26 – 29 MARCH 2009
The Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations is pleased to announce its 2009 Seminar at the annual conference of the American Comparative Literature Association (www.acla.org), to be hosted by Harvard University next 26-29 March.
The conference's broad general theme is "Global Languages, Local Cultures" and Lyrica's Seminar is entitled "Revival and Surival: Opera, Song, Regionalism,Pluralism, Nationalism". Please check our posting among the many fascinating seminars proposed by our colleagues in Comparative Litrature: http://www.acla.org/acla2009/?p=46
The ACLA's Seminars extend over three days and explore its chosen theme through a daily, two-to-three-hour session. A maximum of twelve papers will be accepted and each session will take the form of a round-table discussion where debates are encouraged. Lecture-recitals will also be considered. If submitted for publication in "Ars Lyrica", papers will be subject to the journal's peer-review process.
Interested musicologists and ethnomusicologists, scholars of literature and comparative literature should submit an abstract not to exceed 250 words to: lyricasociety at aol.com with ACLA in the subject line. Notification of acceptance: 31 January 09.
Lyrica's website (www.lyricasociety.org) will soon undergo important structural changes and additions, and we ask that you kindly consult it regularly for updates to our various conference participations (AMS, MLA, ACLA, etc.), for news of our biennial essay competition as well as updates on "Ars Lyrica". Our Newsletters are accessible from the website.
HANDELFEST 2009
AMERICAN HANDEL SOCIETY
CENTRE COLLEGE, DANVILLE KENTUCKY
FEBRUARY – MARCH 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
The American Handel Society invites submission of abstracts for papers to be given at the American Handel Festival 2009, to take place at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, February 26 – March 1, 2009. We invite papers on any topic connected with Handel's life and music.
Abstracts of no more than 500 words may be sent by October 15, 2008 to Wendy Heller, AHS Program Chair. Electronic submissions are preferred, and may be sent to wbheller at princeton.edu. Surface mail may be sent to Prof. Wendy Heller, Music Department, Princeton University, Woolworth Center 214, Princeton, NJ 08544.
Centre College, located in historic Danville in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region, was the host of the Third Annual Conference of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music in 1995. Details on travel and housing will be forthcoming.
CURRENT MUSICOLOGY: CFP
Current Musicology invites submission of new research in the fields of historical musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, media and technology studies, cultural studies, music education, and related fields, in keeping with a long tradition of interdisciplinary publication in all fields of musicology. The editors especially encourage submissions from graduate students and other scholars early in their professional careers.
Current Musicology is a leading forum for research in all areas of music scholarship, seeking to reflect the breadth and diversity of approaches and topics that characterize contemporary music research. CM was founded in 1965 by graduate students at Columbia University as a semiannual review that would primarily serve the needs of musicologists who are about to undertake, are presently engaged in, or have recently completed their graduate studies.
Articles may be submitted electronically to current-musicology [at] columbia.edu or in hard copy to:
Current Musicology
Department of Music
Columbia University
614 Dodge Hall, MC 1812
2960 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
For more information, please refer to our website, www.music.columbia.edu/~curmus
THEATRE NOISE: AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
CENTRAL SCHOOL OF SPEECH AND DRAMA, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Wednesday 22 - Friday 24 April 2009
Keynote presenters include:
Professor Heiner Goebbels (composer and director, managing director of the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, Justus Liebig University, Giessen)
John Collins (artistic director of the New York-based theatre company Elevator Repair Service, formerly sound designer with The Wooster Group)
Theatre Noise describes the acoustic environments and auditory phenomena of theatre and performance. It is concerned, then, with that which is heard. It addresses sound design and ‘undesigned’ noises, music for performance and performance that is both ‘musical’ and ‘unmusical’, voice production and vocal utterance (speaking, shouting, singing, muttering). It proposes that theatre is that which is heard as well as that which is watched – that the theatron is a listening place as well as a seeing place.
Theatre Noise considers aurality. It asks how hearing and listening shape our experience and perception of an event. It concentrates on theatre as a subjective perceptual encounter. It addresses ways in which the noise of theatre works on our senses, and how it positions us within a visceral sphere of acoustic energy.
Theatre Noise is also interested in the inherent noise of the materials of theatre and performance: the rasping of its voices, the sounds in its environment, the interfering consciousness of ‘aural’ corporeal presence within the noisy arena of theatre as a place.
While it proposes a characteristically aural model, Theatre Noise is not confined to the auditory. It describes any atmospheric or environmental distraction, any attention-grabbing dissonance, flaw or mistake, whether sensory or imagined. It might concern any piece of residue or interference that negatively defines theatre.
The conference features examples of innovative performance practices that work in and through sound, music, voice and noise. It explores, through keynotes and paper presentations, developments in thinking and practice in sound design; music; the voice; the notion and presence of noise – all with a bearing on theatre and performance. It develops ideas and principles by way of a series of workshops. Round tables address key issues in the field. Theatre Noise also features a playback room that includes compositions and other aural contributions.
Proposals are invited that address the themes of the conference. The precise meaning of the terms ‘Theatre’ and ‘Noise’ is open to interpretation by contributors. Contributions may, for example, address areas such as:
--The noise theatre of the auditory environment --Acoustic ecology --The musicality of theatre --Non-linguistic voice --Sonic arrangements and/or imperfections that help create meaning--Aural encounters that constitute ‘place’ --Noise as ‘other’ – the chaotic dark material that negatively defines music, theatre, art, sound design
Proposals are invited for the following (please specify): --20-minute paper presentation --1-hour or 2-hour workshop --3-day practitioner-residency with a work-in-progress outcome --Round table --Contribution to the playback room
Proposals should be 300 words in length, with a 150-word biography of the key presenter(s). Proposals should be submitted to the conference organisers at noise@cssd.ac.uk by 5 December 2008.
UNLOCKING AUDIO 2: CONNECTING WITH LISTENERS
BRITISH LIBRARY CONFERENCE CENTRE, LONDON
16 & 17 MARCH 2009
Unlocking Audio 2: Connecting with Listeners is an international conference marking the end of the second phase of the British Library's Archival Sound Recordings project, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
The conference will focus on how audio resources need to be prepared for access in ways that researchers expect to discover, browse, audition and analyse them on-line. Reviewing existing and emerging practices and technologies, the conference will be of interest to: content owners, service providers, user groups, resource managers, system integrators, designers and implementers of data mining, search and analysis tools. The programme will include a social dinner and behind-the-scenes tours of the audio facilities of the British Library Conservation Centre. Space will be available for displaying posters and small exhibits.
A detailed programme, call for papers and registration information will be available soon at <http://www.bl.uk/unlockingaudio> For more information about Archival Sound Recordings: http://sounds.bl.uk
Unlocking Audio 2
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom
Fax: + 44 (0)207 412 7441
Email: sound-archive@bl.uk
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
INTERDISCIPLINARY NINETEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES (INCS) CONFERENCE
SKIDMORE COLLEGE, SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY
April 24-26, 2009
Following on the 2008 INCS theme, The Emergence of Human Rights, this conference will focus on the pursuit of happiness, that elusive corollary to life and liberty. What form did happiness and the comprehension of happiness take in the nineteenth century? How, for example, did the legacy of the American and French Revolutions shape nineteenth-century understandings of happiness? What were the effects of burgeoning industrialism? In keeping with the recent turn to studies of emotion, feeling, and affect within literary studies as well as psychology, economics, history, and philosophy, we invite papers on the nineteenth-century contexts and genealogies for such work. And, in acknowledgment of our 2009 conference location. Saratoga Springs, NY, we particularly encourage papers exploring Victorian pleasure-seeking as having provided popular, if contested, routes to happiness.
Topics may include:
Joy, Luxury and pleasure in a democratic republic, Wealth, Leisure, Beauty, art, Speculation (gambling, chance), Family, friendship, love, Recreation, Rights, liberties, Race, class, gender and ethnic perspectives on happiness, Leisure, Virtue, working for the good of others, Health, spas, hygiene, The cultivation of emotions, Shopping / consumer desire Vacations / travel
Misery, the absence of happiness;and pain, the opposite of pleasure, Architecture of happiness
INCS encourages interdisciplinary perspectives integrating: Literature, Law, Political Science, Philosophy, Theology, History, Music and Art History, History of Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Economics, Health Sciences.
200 word abstracts by October 15, 2008 to Deirdre d'Albertis, Bard College via e-mail at: dalberti at bard.edu
For more information on INCS see: www.nd.edu/~incshp/
Selected conference papers published in *Nineteenth-Century Contexts*
CFP: BOOK SERIES, ASHGATE INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN OPERA
Call for Proposals for a new Book Series
Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera
Series Editor:
Roberta Montemorra Marvin, University of Iowa
Advisory Panel
Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto
David Levin, University of Chicago
Herbert Lindenberger, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
Julian Rushton, Professor Emeritus, University of Leeds, UK
Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera is designed to provide a centralized and prominent forum for the presentation of cutting-edge scholarship that draws on numerous disciplinary approaches to a wide range of subjects associated with the creation, performance, and reception of opera (and closely related genres) in various social, historical and geographical contexts. Both single author books and collections of essays that reflect the ever-increasing interest in opera as viewed from non-musical perspectives will be considered for inclusion in the series. Books in the series will be linked by their emphasis on a single genre--opera--and will be distinguished by their individualized and novel approaches by scholars from various fields of inquiry. The remit of the series welcomes studies on seventeenth-century to contemporary opera and related genres.
Guidelines for proposals can be found at http://www.ashgate.com/subject_area/music/music_submitting.htm.
Please send proposals electronically as a Word file e-mail attachment to roberta-marvin at uiowa.edu or by post to: Roberta M. Marvin, University of Iowa, Obermann Center, N130 Oakdale Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242
TRADITIONS IN WESTERN PLAINCHANT
4TH ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM OF THE GREGORIAN INSTITUTE OF CANADA
MCMASTER UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON ONTARIO, CANADA
13 -16 August 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
Plenary speaker:
Joseph Dyer, "Observations on the Origins of the Antiphonale Missarum"
Featured artists:
Schola Antiqua of Madrid (Spain), Juan Carlos Asensio, Director
Recent plainchant scholarship has focused on specialized topics such as the early dissemination of variants and palaeographical issues, while opening up new areas of research. These diverse approaches have had a significant impact on our understanding of plainchant cultures (old-Roman, Hispano-Wisigothic, Gregorian), as well as on palaeographical and performance practices. The revival of Gregorian chant in the nineteenth century has led to the relatively recent development of the so-called “Solesmes” tradition of performance, while other schools of performance evolved on the basis of contrasting approaches to musical style and palaeography.
This conference of the Gregorian Institute of Canada offers the opportunity to discuss the significance of recent scholarship and new approaches to plainchant as they relate to different traditions. Since the Gregorian Institute of Canada has focused from its inception on performance, the conference will provide a unique opportunity for scholars and performers from Canada and around the world to share and discuss their ideas, research and experiences.
The organizers therefore welcome proposals dealing with any aspect of tradition in Western plainchant, including but not limited to: music, analysis, palaeography, pedagogy, theory, and performance practice. The conference will also include workshops on approaches to performance practice in Western plainchant.
Please send a 250-word abstract to the following e-mail address: igc.gic at gmail.com, for review by the program committee. Proposals abstracts may be sent, and papers given, in either English or French. Conference papers will be limited to 30 minutes, followed by a 10-minute discussion period. Performance practice workshops will last 40 minutes. The deadline for proposals is February 1, 2009
http://www.gregorian.ca/
HAYDN 2009 IN BOSTON & CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
CALL FOR PAPERS
DEADLINE: 30 SEPTEMBER 2008
In celebration of the Haydn Year 2009, The Haydn Society of North America, in partnership with the Handel and Haydn Society, will hold a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 28-31, 2009. The conference, which is co-sponsored and hosted by the Longy School of Music, will conclude with the Handel and Haydn Society’s free, outdoor performance of The Creation on Boston's Esplanade on Sunday afternoon, May 31st.
Proposals are invited for papers on critical, analytical, and historical topics related to Haydn and his musical context. Proposals that address The Creation, Haydn's Vienna at the time of The Creation or the work's extraordinary reception, as well as those that connect scholarly work with performance (e.g. Haydn-themed recitals and/or lecture-recitals) and/or teaching (e.g. teaching Haydn in the classroom, with student musicians, and/or with choruses) will be especially welcome. We are open to considering a variety of sessions or events, and encourage you to send proposals and ideas for participation. Papers should fit a 30-minute time slot.
Proposals (300 words maximum), indicating A/V needs, should be sent by September 30, 2008 as e-mail attachments or by post to:
Benjamin M. Korstvedt
Associate Professor of Music
Chair of the Haydn 2009 Program Committee
Clark University
Worcester, Massachusetts 01610
bkorstvedt at clarku.edu
The program committee includes Floyd Grave (Rutgers University), Benjamin Korstvedt (Clark University), Michael Lamkin (Scripps College), Melanie Lowe (Vanderbilt University), Rebecca Marchand (Haydn Society of North America), and Jessica Waldoff (The College of the Holy Cross).
For more information about the Haydn Society of North America, its goals, and its activities, please visit our Web site: www.haydnsocietyofnorthamerica.org.
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY MUSIC STUDIES
(REVISED AND SELECTED PAPERS OF CIM07, TALLINN)ON THEME OF “SINGING”
CALL FOR PAPERS
http://www.musicstudies.org/springFall2008.html
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies (JIMS) is an international peer-reviewed journal. Published twice per year, it aims to establish a broad interdisciplinary platform for music researchers. JIMS especially promotes collaborations between sciences and humanities and between theory and practice, and provocative submissions that stimulate interdisciplinary discussion.
The journal aims:
--to contribute towards an understanding of music in all its manifestations, definitions and contexts --to promote interdisciplinary synergy among humanities, sciences and practically oriented disciplines --to promote academic quality and the application of research findings
The journal accepts original submissions associated with: all subdisciplines or paradigms of musicology, including analytical, applied, comparative, cultural, empirical, ethnological,
historical, popular, scientific, systematic and theoretical, and all musically relevant disciplines, including acoustics, aesthetics, anthropology, archeology, art history and theory, biology, cognitive sciences, composition, computing, cultural studies, economics, education, engineering, ethnology, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary studies, mathematics, medicine, music theory and analysis, neurosciences, perception, performance, philosophy, physiology, popular music, prehistory, psychoacoustics, psychology, religious studies, semiotics, sociology, sport, statistics and therapy.
All submissions must have at least two authors representing contrasting disciplines. Please consult the journal's homepage for detailed submission guidelines and procedures: www.musicstudies.org
JIMS is indexed by:
Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), Direct Open Access Journals (DOAJ), INTUTE: Arts and Humanities, ZDB OPAC (Zeitschriftendatenbank), HeBIS-Verbundkatalog
Contact: Ali C. Gedik, administrative editor, a.cenkgedik@musicstudies.org
PURCELL, HANDEL & LITERATURE
INSTITUTES OF MUSICAL RESEARCH & ENGLISH STUDIES
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, 20 - 21 NOVEMBER 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
Institutes of Musical Research and English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. The Music and English Departments of the Open University in association with the OU Literature and Music Research Group. The Handel Institute. The Purcell Society. This conference will be one of the concluding events in the year marking the anniversaries of Henry Purcell's birth (1658 or 1659) and Handel's death (1759).
Proposals for papers are now invited. Papers should be of 20 minutes duration, and the proposal should be presented as an abstract of not more than 250words. Proposals for thematic round-table sessions will also be considered. Proposals should be submitted by 30 October 2008, and should be sent to valerie.james@sas.ac.uk. Please include your name, contact details and (if applicable) your affiliation within your proposal.
An outline programme for the conference will be prepared and circulated early in 2009, so that accepted participants can plan their travel arrangements. Funding for the conference will be sought, but this is likely to be limited and participants are requested to seek support from their own institutions where this is possible. If a large number of good quality proposals on topics germane to the conference theme are received, an additional day for the conference may be scheduled on Thursday 19 November. For the conference abstract, see overleaf.
The conference programme committee, which will consider and review all paper proposals, comprises representatives from all of the sponsoring institutions:
Robert Fraser, Delia Da Sousa Correa, Donald Burrows (OU/Handel Institute); Sandra Tuppen, Bruce Wood (Purcell Society), Katharine Ellis (IMR), Sandra Clark (IES), Colin Timms (Handel Institute). Specialist papers may be referred to other members of these institutions, but the final decisions on conference content will be taken by the committee.
CONFERENCE ABSTRACT:
Taken together, the careers of the two composers constitute one of the most remarkable periods in London's music-making. Although Handel's career in London commenced only fifteen years after Purcell's death, their styles in setting English texts were very different, partly because of their individual approaches to word-setting, and partly because of the different styles in which they worked. Yet for both of them English literary texts-reaching as far back as Shakespeare in Purcell's case-were fundamental to aspects of their activity. Both wrote for major productions (of plays or un-staged oratorios) in the London theatres, and contributed to some common genres - Cecilian and court odes, and liturgical church music on texts from the Book of Common Prayer. Handel set odes by John Dryden that had originally been written during Purcell's lifetime, and also texts by John Milton; texts by Congreve (though not the same ones) form a common thread in works by both composers. Nahum Tate was the librettist of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas; Handel's anthems include settings of texts from the metrical versions of the Psalms by Tate and Brady. Both composers, however, were also reliant on other librettists of their own generations: D'Urfey for Purcell's stage works, for example, Miller, Jennens and Morell for Handel's oratorios.
The intention of the conference is to bring together participants with interests in music and literature, and to cover a range of relevant topics, such as: the literary and musical genres, the nature of the libretti and the composers' treatment of them; the various forms of musical dramas (as genres, and in relation to the stage conventions of the 17th and 18th centuries); the status of Milton and Dryden as "musical" poets; the influence of text settings by Purcell and Handel on subsequent composers, and in subsequent literature; the genres of the court and Cecilian odes; the setting of English liturgical texts.
Although it is anticipated that the principal focus will be on English texts (and London performance conditions), the theme may also encompass the influence of Italian and Classical literature, Handel's settings of Italian texts in his operas and cantatas, and relevant topics relating to German literature. Proposals for papers that consider the importance of either or both these composers within literature of later periods will also be welcomed.
MUSIC AND MORALITY
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
INSTITUTE OF MUSICAL RESEARCH & INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY
16-17 JUNE 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
Keynote speakers: George Benjamin, John Deathridge, Deirdre Gribbin, Jerrold Levinson, Susan McClary, Roger Scruton
Convenor: Guy Dammann, Institute of Musical Research
Music has commonly been considered the most elusive of art-forms and yet throughout history there have been frequent assertions of its strong links with our moral sensibilities. While this situation may suggest a contradiction between shifting views and expectations of art and music, it may also point to some deeper questions about the nature of music and morality.
In the context of increased academic and practical interest in the question of music's moral value and potential, we are seeking contributions from academic and practical musicians, philosophers,
psychologists and historians of ideas, offering critical reflections on questions or cases that touch on the theme of music and morality.
Interested contributors should send, in a first instance, a 300 word abstract for a proposed paper of not more than 20 minutes reading time to Valerie James, Institute of Musical Research, music@sas.ac.uk by the deadline of 31 January 2009. Notice of acceptances of submissions will be announced within one month of this deadline.
General questions of interest include but are not limited to the following:
--Can music yield moral knowledge or understanding?
--Must good music have a moral value?
--Is there such a thing as immoral music?
--Is the idea of morality in music compatible with aesthetic formalism?
Musical experience plays a prominent and important part in our lives. While our musical tastes seem to attach themselves strongly to our individual sense of identity (to a greater degree, even, than in other artforms), our musical encounters also appear greatly to deepen our
emotional relationship with others. However, the question of whether our musical experience bears relation to our existence as moral agents, and to our conception of morality more broadly, remains wide open. Should -and perhaps must - musical experience have a moral dimension?
Within Western traditions of thinking about music and art during the last century or so, the answer to this question was by and large a strongly negative one. For much of Western history, however, the link between morality and the arts was widely construed as strong, and, at
times, even as necessary. Eighteenth-century thinkers and philosophers, such as Kant, Schiller and Rousseau conceived of powerful links between beauty, aesthetic value in general, and the moral sphere. Moreover, in the classical world, not only was a strong connection between the arts and morality widely assumed, but of all the arts, music was held to be the most morally powerfully of all.
During recent years the relation between art and morality has again come under critical and philosophical scrutiny, perhaps in answer to a pervasive social re-evaluation of the meaning of artistic experience and practice. But while musicology has seen a huge increase in emphasis on
the social and cultural aspects of music and its making, and philosophers have reassessed notions of the moral content of the literary and pictorial arts, the precise question of music's moral value
has yet to be adequately posed.
The proposed conference intends to offer a comparative examination of this subject by bringing together academics and scholars from within musicology, philosophy, and neighbouring disciplines to explore the relation between music and morality, from a variety of historical,
interpretative and analytical perspectives.
