New Perspectives on Elvis: A One-Day International Conference

Memphis Public Library,  21 August 2017, start: 10.15am

16 August 2017 will be the fortieth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, one of the most popular and controversial music makers of the twentieth century. ‘New Perspectives on Elvis’ is a day-long international event held at the Memphis Public Library. The aim is to offer fresh perspectives on the Memphis icon, not only grounding him in the context of his place and time, but also interpreting him in relation to developments both inside and outside the academy. Paper proposals are invited on a range of topics. As well as class, race and gender, these could include but are not limited to:

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Symposium on 21st Century Music Practice: Sound and Vision

Date: 20 April 2017
Place: Edric Hall, 103 Borough Road, London South Bank University

This call seeks 150-word abstract submissions (by 21 March) for a one-day symposium, on the connection between sound and vision in twenty first century music practices in the context of 21st century music practice. We are inviting musicians, researchers, thinkers and talkers to take part in debate on the multiple dynamics of sound and the visual in a range of twenty-first century music practices, from performance and sound tracking to interactive music technologies. Hereby, we wish to investigate not only the dynamics between music and spectacle, in terms of characterisation and narrative development, but also in terms of creation and interaction, bringing new questions regarding the relationships between sound and vision in music practices.

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Creating music across cultures in the 21st Century

Istanbul Technical University, 25-27 May 2017

In the context of one of the world’s most organic melting pots, Istanbul, The Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul Technical University, will host an international conference, in partnership with the European Research Council funded project “Beyond East and West,” May 25-27, 2017.

No music is an island.  Since time immemorial, cultures have traded and mixed musics across their domains, yet only in the 21^st century have people around the world gained instant and virtually free access to musics beyond those of their neighbors.  The history of these mixings has been marked by a plethora of descriptors, some benign and others acerbic.  Depending on one’s perspective, the “other” musics span the gamut of primitive (“first”), Oriental, classical, art, learned, popular, etc.  Their mixtures have been termed synthetic, syncretic, trans-traditional, trans-cultural, intercultural, cross-cultural, borrowed, or globalized.  The oral and the literate have been contrasted, while the exotic has been vilified.  Quests for musical beauty and knowledge have been shaped by political, economic and social, hegemonic forces.  We are now at a point where, for the first time in history, the playing field has reached a new level of equity, with widespread access to a majority of the world’s traditions, on a scale radically different from a mere generation ago. Read the rest of this entry »

The Future Sound of Pop Music

Symposium, 30 November – 3 December 2017, Bern, University of the Arts, Ostermundigenstr. 103

Lectures, discussions and side programme

New technologies, new interfaces and controllers have significantly altered the sound world of pop music in recent years. In current pop songs, electronic sounds and effects are dominant. The sound aesthetic of pop music has also undergone a major shift from the 1960s to the present day. Initially, pop music invested in a few distinctive distinguishing features such as distortion, but today it features complex electronic constructions based on samples, virtual instruments and effects.

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Popular Music and its Theories: Encounters – Changes in Perspective – Transfers

27th Conference of the Gesellschaft für Popularmusikforschung (GfPM)
17th Annual Congress of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie (GMTH)

17–19 November 2017 (Fri-Sun)
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Kunstuniversität Graz / KUG)

Conference chairs:
Christian Utz, Institute 1: Composition, Music Theory, Music History and Conducting
André Doehring, Institute 16: Jazz Research

The engagement with popular music in music studies has fundamentally challenged the role of music theory in the context of popular music research. Since the 1970s, a diverse discourse on the theory and analysis of popular music has taken place in the English-speaking world, reinforced by the Popular Music Interest Group, founded in 1998 within the Society for Music Theory (SMT). Such developments do not, however, preclude a continuing “lack of […] intellectual interface between music theory and the rest of the popular music studies community” (Lacasse 2015). Moreover, in the German-speaking world, focus on theoretical-analytical questions is still relatively rare in popular music research and music-theoretical studies are only occasionally dedicated to popular musics.

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Music Production Education Conference 2017

York St John University, York, UK, Thursday June 29^th 2017
www.musicproductioneducation.co.uk

MPEC is a new addition to the conference calendar for the study of Music Production pedagogy. MPEC seeks to provide a forum for the discussion and analysis of teaching and learning in music production & technology in Further and Higher Education.

The conference will offer lively debate and stimulating presentations, which will address issues of the place of music production within the broader context of the performing arts sector, research and professional communities.

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Czech and Slovak Journal of Humanities – Special Issue on Musicology

Special musicological issue on the topic “Music and Popularity”

For the upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed journal Czech and Slovak Journal of Humanities (August 2017) we are looking for studies focused on various aspects related to the phenomena of “music” and “popularity”. We invite articles anchored in classical music as well as popular music. Papers which directly or indirectly problematize the traditional polarisation of the aforementioned musical spheres are especially welcome. The issue provides space for specific historical investigations and case studies, but also for wider theoretical considerations which would reflect the construction of the phenomena of the so-called classical and popular music from social, political / ideological, economic, philosophical and other perspectives. In this respect, approaches of ethnomusicology and cultural geography, which would touch on the topic with regard to the specifics of particular localities, regions, nations and ethnic groups, are most desirable.  Read the rest of this entry »

Music, Multiculturalism and the Postcolonial Condition

Summer school for doctoral candidates, Music Archive JAPA, Helsinki 3–4 July 2017

As global migration alters societal and cultural conditions, musical practices and environments transmute. The global postcolonial condition is indeed clearly visible and audible in myriad forms of music that evince the pervasiveness of racialisation, parochialism and banal nationalism, while at the same celebrating creative hybridity, multicultural authenticities and cultural encounters. Music provides a rich source and platform for postcolonial studies not only because of its identity politics but also on the grounds of its political economy, as demonstrated by the central role of music in global cultural industries and transnational labour arrangements.
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Popular Music in the Nordic Countries

Study Day at the University of Oslo, September 14, 2017

On September 14th, 2017 this year, the Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo will host a study day for IASPM Norden members. The theme of the day is the study of popular music in the Nordic countries. Professor Stan Hawkins will introduce the event, which is co- hosted by our department’s Nordic Sounds: Critical Music Research Group.

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Labora[R]tio: Collaborate, Articulate, Integrate

[lat.: work, effort]
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
May 10–12, 2017     

Sound Thought is an annual festival of music and sound research, composition, and performance run by postgraduate students from the University of Glasgow. Sound Thought presents a unique opportunity for postgraduate researchers by providing them with a platform to present their research in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment alongside the work of contemporary practitioners. Sound Thought 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the festival, having been initially established in 2007.
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