The 7th Rhythm Changes Conference: Jazz Then & Now

The 7th Rhythm Changes Conference, Jazz Then & Now, will take place at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 25 to 28 August 2022. This conference marks the 12th anniversary of the Rhythm Changes project.

Keynotes
Lucas Dols, double bassist and founder Sounds of Change Foundation: Opening lecture
Rhythm Changes Then & Now: Plenary panel on twelve years of the project
Prof. Charles Hersch, Cleveland State University: Closing address

We invite submissions for Jazz Then & Now, a four-day multidisciplinary conference bringing together leading researchers across the arts and humanities and others interested in jazz studies. The event will feature academic papers, panels, and roundtables.

Jazz is an urgent music that responds to or addresses contemporary crises. Its history is inseparable from struggles over civil rights, racial and gender identities, cultural politics, social hierarchies, artistic significance, and new technologies. The music has defined itself through debates around inclusion and exclusion, exemplified by iconic phrases such as ‘This Is Our Music’ (Ornette Coleman) or ‘What Jazz Is – and Isn’t’ (Wynton Marsalis). The sounds of jazz have often been heard as strident, edgy, unexpected, demandingly presentist – as urgent. Or is jazz perhaps more about its ‘then’ than its ‘now’ once we move outside circles of scholars, musicians, and fans? Jazz Then & Now seeks to critically explore how this sense (or absence?) of urgency plays out in jazz and how it contributes to our most compelling contemporary debates.

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Internet Musicking: Popular Music and Online Cultures

A free academic conference sharing new research into cultural practices of music taking place online
21–22 May 2022

Department of Music, University College Cork (Ireland) & Online
https://internetmusicking.com

Over the last few years, music researchers have paid increased attention to the internet and its effects on cultural life. For example, edited collections on digital culture, virtuality, and social media have emerged alongside landmark research projects that seek to understand how the internet shapes the cultural production of music. Meanwhile, interdisciplinary inquiry has addressed internet-based cultural practices of popular music, critically examining the tension between creative platform uses and the political economy of an increasingly privatised internet.

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Challenge and Change in Popular Music

The 2022 IASPM-UK/Ireland Branch Conference
Liverpool, August 31st – September 2nd

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/music/events/iaspm

Conference Themes

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting social and economic crises, proposals are invited for papers that respond to contemporary global challenges and changes. Whether informed by the experiences of individuals, cities, nations or global communities, papers might respond to:

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Exploring Audio and Music Technology in Education

Special Issue: ‘Exploring Audio and Music Technology in Education: Pedagogical, Research and Sociocultural Perspectives’

Full paper submission deadline: 1 April 2022

The past decade has seen increased interest in the pedagogical facets of audio engineering, sound design, music technology and related fields. Much of this rising interest in the teaching and learning aspects of sound corresponds to a growing number of institutions offering training options for people interested in the technical, creative, scientific and cultural aspects of audio. However, while the options for learning about such topics have expanded, there remains a dearth of scholarship on the theoretical, sociocultural and interdisciplinary aspects of audio and its connection to teaching and learning in a broad array of institutions. Also, little scholarship has emphasized a professional development model for the educational aspects of audio, particularly for those working with the next generation of practitioners in all educational contexts. What impact do audio and music corporations have on facilities and curricular decision-making? For this Special Issue of the Journal of Music, Technology & Education, the guest editors seek contributions addressing one or more of the topics below:

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M/C Journal: ‘Cities’

Over the past 20 years, interest in the ways in which cities might be re-imagined and place-branded through specific creative and cultural identities and activities has increased exponentially (Landry; Andersson; Evans; Grodach), with urban policy-makers in particular seeking to find ways to leverage these identities to drive a range of urban development, economic, heritage, and tourism initiatives (Richards; Baker; Martinez; Ballico and Watson). In turn, significant attention has been given to the vital contribution creative workers make to the creative, cultural, and economic fabric of cities, with policies aimed at attracting these workers becoming a central tenet of many creative city strategies (Florida). To this end, urban development strategies prefaced on the enactment of a range of ‘creative’ and ‘cultural’ frameworks are commonplace in cities across the world. Examples of this include the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, which encompasses creative sectors as diverse as Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts, and Music (Ballico and Carter), as well as other sector-specific frameworks such as the global music cities movement (Baker; Ballico and Watson). Considering the emergence, circulation, and adoption of these policy frameworks, as well as more broadly the ways in which creative and cultural identities can be leveraged through place activation strategies, we invite contributions that provide, although are not limited to:

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Festival Activism!

For decades festivals have provided important sites of inquiry for folklorists and ethnomusicologists alike. While theoretically and methodologically diverse, this literature has traditionally focused on the communitas of festival experience and the flow of everyday social life beyond the festival’s liminal boundaries. Attending to the activist turn in ethnographic research, we wish to explore the idea of festivals as strategic forms of social action. Specifically, how can a critical ethnographic study of festivals reveal the ways in which performers, participants, and organizers encounter and challenge the myriad forms of violence that frame the contemporary world? How do festivals constitute sites of activism and forms of social and political intervention?

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Eighth International Conference on Music and Minimalism

May 5–8, 2022

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Deadline for Proposals: January 10, 2022 (11:59PM PST)

All scholars and practitioners of minimalist music (broadly conceived) are invited to submit proposals for the Eighth International Conference on Music and Minimalism hosted by the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts in Bowling Green, OH, USA.

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Rethinking Participatory Processes Through Music

‘Rethinking Participatory Processes Through Music’
14-15 January 2022, online event
https://musicdemocracystudydays.wordpress.com

Convened by Igor Contreras Zubillaga (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Huddersfield) and Robert Adlington (University of Huddersfield)

Keynote speakers: Hélène Landemore (Yale University), Anna Bull (University of York), Raymond MacDonald (University of Edinburgh)

In recent times, the UK’s Brexit vote, the 2016 US presidential election, and other elections worldwide have made democratic processes the subject of unprecedented public debate. This has led to widespread questioning of the mechanisms for people’s participation in the democratic system and in political decision-making. One of the most ground-breaking inquiries into what public participation ought to look like within democracy has recently been carried out by political scientist Hélène Landemore (Yale University). In her book Open Democracy (2020), Landemore favours the ideal of ‘representing and being represented in turn’ over direct-democracy approaches. Drawing on recent experiments with citizens’ assemblies, Landemore offers a different concept of nonelectoral democratic representation.

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Working as a Musician Transnationally

Special Issue of Rock Music Studies

Guest-edited by Pierre Bataille (U. of Grenoble-Alpes), Marie Buscatto (U. of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne), Martin Cloonan (U. of Turku), and Marc Perrenoud (U. of Lausanne)

Submissions are invited for a special issue of Rock Music Studies on the topic of Working as a Musician Transnationally.

This issue addresses the question of rock and popular musicians working across borders. We would like to focus on the careers of those rock and popular musicians who have become transnational when they regularly tour in another country or tour recurrently around the world. It can be routine for musicians to play in a foreign country or region where they have an audience. In some cases, the international market may even be more important for them than their audience at home. The scope of such activities can range from a big world tour of stadiums by a megastar to a humble tour in some countries in underground venues by an alternative independent artist. Musicians may also operate transnationally via active local music networks and venues.

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Progressive Rock: Geography, Culture, Discourse

The 5th Biennial International Conference of the Progect Network for the Study of Progressive Rock
Sr Peter’s College, University of Oxford, August 27-29, 2022 (Oxford, UK)

General enquiries about the conference can be sent by email to: [email protected]

In the late 1960s, the term ‘progressive’ was used to define music that transcended the commercial ‘pop’ product, and audiences that sought the wide range of hybridized forms that emerged from that time. This blurring of boundaries was enacted by musicians who had experience performing in rock, pop, folk, blues, and soul bands, as well as those with experience or training in orchestral music, jazz, electronic and other genres. Over the past half-century numerous hybrid sub-genres have subsequently emerged; progressive rock is now a global phenomenon with significant bodies of work found on every continent.

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