II Conference AVAMUS – XV AVAMUS Working Days of Musicology

“The Mediterranean: Migrant Sounds”
AVAMUS (Associació Valenciana de Musicologia)
23-26 July, 2019
“La Nau” Cultural Space
2 University Street- Valencia (Spain) – Apt. 46003

The International Conference «The Mediterranean: Migrant Sounds», is the second of this type organized by AVAMUS and is proposed as a continuation of the International Conference «La Música en la Mediterrània Occidental: red de comunicación intercultural» (The Music in the Western Mediterranean: intercultural communication network), which took place in July 2014. This conference is interdisciplinary in its outlook, bringing together the many disciplines that examine the history and effect of music and sound, and which also interact with other approaches from the humanities and social sciences, for example art, literature, anthropology and sociology. Thus, the social and ethical dimensions are tackled both historically and synchronously, seeking out a history of movement that allows us to better understand our shared history.

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Exploring Gender Dynamics in the Music Industry

May 17-18, 2019
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media in connection with the research project Exploring Gender Barriers in the (Dutch) Music Industry funded by the NWO KIEM (Creative Industry – Knowledge Innovation Mapping) at the University of Groningen is pleased to announce a two-day symposium to be held on May 17-18, 2019. The symposium will bring together both scholars and industry professionals to share insights on the topic of Gender Dynamics in the Music Industry. The intention is to share resources and create a dialogue to better address the lack of gender parity within the music industry. Further, we seek to extend to discussion to fields connected to, but not exclusive to the (relatively better researched) performance sphere. We welcome scholars and industry professionals from all genders and from all genres of music from classical to folk and popular.

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Symposium: Music, cities and popular memory: a “very messy cultural archive”?

10-5pm, Friday 29th March 2019 : Solent Spark (TS414), Southampton

Solent Music | So:Music City | Culture, Media, Place @ Solent

The relationship between popular music, cultural memory and the city is currently experiencing renewed attention, both in research and in practice. We invite researchers across the humanities and social sciences to share knowledge, methods and case studies that shed light on their intertwined histories.

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Lit-Rock: Literary Capital in Popular Music

Call for Chapter Proposals
Book Title: Lit-Rock: Literary Capital in Popular Music
Editor: J. Ryan Hibbett, Northern Illinois University
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2019

This edited collection will explore, across diverse genres of popular music and toward a rich analysis of cultural exchange, the uses of literature and literary practices. Such uses may include literary allusion, the adoption of recognized literary techniques, the adaptation of literary content, the cultivation of poetic personae, or any other use in which the literary makes itself visible and functions as a distinguishing form of capital. When, where, how, and why—this book will ask—does popular music negotiate itself as something “other”? When and how do pop stars present their works as art, and to what extent are they granted or denied the prestige associated with high art traditions? How do listeners negotiate their identities as undiscerning fans/consumers with their roles as discriminating connoisseurs? And, finally, how do artists and fans navigate the contradiction of popularity as external validation and, as is often simultaneously the case, aesthetic inferiority? Amidst such questions, and made timely by Bob Dylan’s (awkwardly received) Nobel Prize and Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer, this study will 1) reveal the use of literary signs, logics, and practices as a phenomenon visible in various ways across the entire pop spectrum, rather than as the exclusive product of an isolated, elite genre within popular music; 2) make apparent literature’s dependency—for meaning, validation, perseverance—on practices often viewed as peripheral; and 3) rethink literature and rock music not as competing representatives of high and low culture, but as an interdependent system mutually invested in, and endlessly regenerating, the high/pop distinction itself.

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HardWired. Heavy Metal Research Conference VII:  Discipl(in)es of Transgression? Transdisciplinarity and the Study of Popular Culture 

University of Salzburg (Austria)
02 – 04 October 2019

Organizers: Frederic Luftensteiner, Nils Grosch, Sascha Trültzsch-Wijnen, Anna-Lena Mützel (University of Salzburg; Faculty of Cultural and Social Sciences; Department of Art, Music and Dance Studies; Department of Communication Science; Doctorate School Popular Culture Studies)

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Elements Bristol Hip-hop Conference

2nd Meeting of the European HipHop Studies Network
06-08 June 2019
University of Bristol, UK

KEYNOTE: Juice Aleem and J. Griffith Rollefson (UCC)

Call for Papers (Reminder–deadline 31 January)

Emceeing. DJing. Breaking. Graffiti. Hip-hop is commonly understood to consist of these four elements. The idea of four elements is one of hip-hop culture’s core narrative and most pervasive founding myth since its beginnings in the Bronx in the 1970s. Yet, the idea of four core elements has been highly contested since the beginning of the culture as there is no unified definition of how many elements exist, who defined them, and how they came together.

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Popular Music Education in Wales

As noted by the likes of Hobsbawm and Ranger (1992), Ellis (2000), Hill (2007) and Carr (2010), Wales has a unique landscape culturally, politically, linguistically and of course musically. Like other Small Nations, the country, which was devolved in 1998, has a distinct set of challenges in order to ensure it exploits the full potential of Creative Industries such as music. In terms of popular music education, this broader landscape is/has been informed via initiatives funded by Welsh Government (The Welsh Music Foundation), the Arts Council (Forté, the Music Industry Development Fund, Horizons 12, Community Music Wales), Wales Arts International (the International Development Fund) and local councils. Cardiff Council for example are working with Sound Diplomacy, who are developing a strategy to make Cardiff the UKs first ‘Music City’, while Rhonnda Cynon Taff co-fund the Forté project. All of these initiatives, some of which are co -funded by the likes of the PRS Foundation, The British Council and the BBC, are intended at least in part to ‘educate’ stakeholders within the Welsh Music Industry, from grass roots to international engagement.

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Minimalism Extended: The Seventh International Conference on Minimalist Music

Deadline for submissions: 31 January 2019

You are kindly invited to submit proposals for the Seventh International Conference on Minimalist Music, to be held at Cardiff University from 22-26 August, 2019.

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Heretical Sound Synthesis mini-symposium

The University of the Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, Centre for Music & Technology, May 16th to 17th, 2019

The HSS mini-symposium invites abstracts and proposals for papers and contributions, including accounts of artistic projects, on or around the subject of heretical sound synthesis. Ideally, proposals will include a demonstration component, which can be live or recorded. Live demonstrations must be safe.

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Imagine the Future! (IASA 2019 conference)

The Programme Committee for the IASA 2019 conference welcomes proposals representing a broad palette of archival and personal interests which are distinguished by their focus on sound and audiovisual documents. Subject areas might include musical recordings; historic, literary, folkloric, and ethnological sound documents; theatre productions; oral history interviews; news and broadcast materials; bio-acoustics; environmental and medical sounds; linguistic and dialect recordings; as well as recordings for forensic purposes. This year, IASA encourages presenters to envision the future of audiovisual content and to address concerns of interest for those who create, use, manage, and preserve such material.
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