Creativities, Musicalities, Entrepreneurships

The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance is hosting its third biennial international conference, in partnership with the Art of Management and Organization. The event will take place at the Institute’s London campus from 4^th to 6^th September 2014.

The discourse of artists as entrepreneurs has become commonplace in recent years, perhaps especially in higher education, but there is less discussion of entrepreneurs as artists. Notions of what it is to be musical are increasingly challenged by narrow notions of success and the rise of celebrity (Smith 2013). Writers such as Peter Cook in The Music of Business (2012), Richard Sennett (2012), Peter Gloor (2006) and Cartwright, Gillett & Smith (2014) have begun to expand the discourse between these intimately interconnected domains. The time is right to explore creativities, musicalities and entrepreneurships in a vibrant, collaborative environment.

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Metal and Cultural Impact: Metal’s Role in the 21st Century

Thursday, November 6 – Saturday November 8, 2014
University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio, USA

Metal Studies is a growing interdisciplinary field, connected to, though not limited to fields as diverse as Popular Culture, Leisure Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, History, English Studies, Music, Cultural and Critical  Studies, Gender Studies, Critical Theory, and Business and Economics.

This conference aims to examine Metal culture’s role in society throughout the world.  Does Metal seek to bring people together or pull them away from mainstream culture? Does it serve as a rallying cry for the oppressed throughout the world? Has its development over time negatively affected the quality of the music, or has the changing nature of our world made it that much more important to its fans, musicians, and those who control the industry? How has Metal music and its culture adapted with the changing world—or has it? And, as Metal continues to be a part of world cultures, how will it not only affect the world, but also how will it be affected by the world?

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The Good Old Days? Negotiating Quality, Mythology and Technostalgia in Contemporary Music Production

Journal on the Art of Record Production ISSN: 1754-9892

 CALL FOR ARTICLES

 Issue #9

The Journal on the Art of Record Production invites articles, provocations and practitioner interviews for Issue #9: The Good Old Days? Negotiating Quality, Mythology and Technostalgia in Contemporary Music Production. In a recent Audio Pro International provocation, columnist, engineer and mixer Ian Dowling rejects the notion of ‘The Good Old Days’ and rails against what he sees as a stifling of innovation caused by a slavish re-modelling of the past in today’s recording and production processes. Conversely, Dave Grohl celebrates analogue technology for its effect on the creative process in Sound City. Mixer Chris Lord-Alge freely blends old technology with new, as do many practitioners. Scholars such as David Morton (2000) and Timothy Taylor (2001) have discussed issues of ‘technostalgia’ in relation to music technology; Alan Williams has described the ‘canonization of process’ (2010) whereby past technologies and methodologies are celebrated (as in Sound City and the Classic Albums documentary series). What questions arise from considering the relationship between contemporary music production and its past, whether celebrated or denigrated?

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Into the Mix: People, Places, Processes

5-7 December 2014
St David Theatre Complex, corner of St David and Cumberland Streets, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Organizing Committee: Jen Cattermole, Henry Johnson and Oli Wilson

The theme of this year’s conference is “Into the Mix”. The “mix” is both literal (referring to various stages in the production of popular music, as well as important creative processes such as sampling, remixing and DJing) and an analogy for all types of musical hybridities and encounters, the fluid nature of musical meanings and musical experiences, and the fluidity or movement of ideas, sounds and peoples. The notion of the “mix” is defined broadly; it might involve popular music production processes, a creative setting, or another space where people, places and processes are foregrounded as part of an interpretive cultural analysis. Contributions might be case-study analyses underpinned by historical, ethnographic or critical enquiry, or focused entirely on theoretical orientations addressing music production, as well as hybridity and related topics.

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Looking Popular: Representations of the Popular in Music Visual Culture

Intercongressional symposium to be held at The Royal Library and Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen, 20-23 August 2014.

The Conference will present recent research on topics related to the manner in which “the popular” in its manifold expressions might be represented in visual culture related to music, theatre and dance. Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

• visual culture and media theory related to music, theatre and dance.
• organology of the instruments in use or of influence in popular music.
• popular music, theatre and dance culture as visually presented.
• topics relating to the popularisation of so-called art music as represented in visual culture.
• rock, jazz and pop music and related art forms in visual culture.

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The Live Concert Experience

Special Issue of Rock Music Studies, Fall 2015

Rock Music Studies is a new popular music journal to be launched by Taylor & Francis in 2014, under the co-editorship of Gary Burns and Thomas Kitts. Contributions are invited to a special issue of the journal, to be published in Volume 2.3, 2015, on “The Live Concert Experience.” The special issue will be co-edited by Nick Baxter-Moore and Tom Kitts.

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On Collecting: Music, Materiality and Ownership

11-12 July 2014, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
A collaborative conference between the Reid School of Music at the University of Edinburgh and the National Museum of Scotland.

Featuring two roundtables with invited speakers: Collecting, Listening, and Thingness – Kyle Devine (City University), Marion Leonard (University of Liverpool), Frederick Moehn (King’s College London), Jenny Nex (University of Edinburgh), and Laura Tunbridge (University of Manchester); Collectors in Conversation – Gary and Gillian Atkinson (owners of Document Records), Alasdair Roberts (Drag City), and one more contributor (TBC).

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A Riot of Our Own: A Symposium on The Clash

University of Ulster, Belfast Campus, Northern Ireland
June 20-21, 2014

The preliminary conference programme has been released and registration is now open. For full details please visit www.ariotofourown.wordpress.com.

Keynote speakers include:

• Caroline Coon (artist, writer, manager of The Clash from 1978 to 1980. http://www.carolinecoon.com);
• Professor David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds);
• Chris Salewicz (author of Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer);
• Dr Jason Toynbee (Open University).

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Routledge book series for transnational jazz studies

We are delighted to announce the creation of a new monograph series with Routledge entitled ‘Transnational Studies in Jazz’. The series will present interdisciplinary and international perspectives on the relationship between jazz and its social, political, and cultural contexts, as well as providing authors with a platform for rethinking the methodologies and concepts used to analyse jazz’s musical meaning.
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Special Issue on Popular Music Education

Popular music education is a subject that is at present under-explored, despite increasing numbers of popular music courses and other educational provision. More research is needed to map out the area and engage critically with the many new challenges it is presenting. IASPM Journal, the journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, wishes to encourage further research and debate in this area, with a special issue on popular music education, for publication in 2015.

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