Music, Politics and Dictatorships in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula During the 20th Century

“Music, Politics and Dictatorships in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula During the 20^th Century”

Resonancias – A music research journal

Instituto de Música de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Recently there has been an expanded interest in the connections between music making and the political life that Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries experienced under the authoritarian regimes of the 20^th century. This concern has been expressed in a critical analysis of the topics and methodologies traditionally used to tackle the relationship between music and politics. Among the topics that have marked a turning point in the intersection between the social sciences, the humanities and music research are: the “industry’s” appropriation of music for political ends; the changes in the legal frameworks advanced by local cultural politics; the clandestine lives of politicized musicians, and the activities of resistance in which they participated. Furthermore, the connections between theatre, dance and film, and the role of television in legitimizing symbolic violence against political dissidence (as well as the social effects of such violence) have begun to be studied in order to understand the role of music in political contexts — not to mention how social memory and forgiveness have been currently addressed in ongoing post-dictatorial times.

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Perspectives on Musical Improvisation II

9th-12th September 2014
Faculty of Music, University of Oxford

Following the success of the first Perspectives on Musical Improvisation (PoMI) conference in Oxford in September 2012, a second conference (PoMI II) will take place in Oxford on 9th – 12th September 2014. As with the 2012 event, this conference will address the many faces of improvisation from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. While retaining the same broad and inclusive approach as for PoMI I, the organisers are keen to encourage submissions that will contribute to one or more of the following themes:

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In the Frame? Public and Political Discourses of Migration

Public and political discourses on the matter of inward and outward migration are of crucial importance, as they are responsible for framing the issue, and for how, when, and where these issues arrive on the public / political spectrum (Schain 2008, p.465). As a result such discourses have substantial influence over the general public’s attitudes towards migration (McLaren, 2001).

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A Riot of Our Own: A Symposium on The Clash in Belfast

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

In the 1970s, with the Troubles at their height, touring musicians were usually unwilling to play in Northern Ireland. One of the few international acts prepared to break what was in effect the cultural boycott of the region was The Clash. In October 1977, the iconic punk band was scheduled to open the Get Out of Control tour with a concert in the Ulster Hall in Belfast city centre. A few hours before the group was due to take the stage, however, the gig was cancelled for reasons that remain disputed and sparking chaotic scenes that are often recalled as amounting to a ‘riot’. Shortly before Christmas, The Clash made good on their promise to return to Belfast and played a legendary concert in the McMordie Hall at Queen’s University.

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Race & Place in Hip-Hop Beyond the US

Symposium at the African Studies Association UK’s Biennial Conference
(ASAUK, University of Sussex, 9-11 September 2014)

Hip-hop’s appeal beyond the US has been well documented by recent scholarship and documentaries. Despite the global uptake of hip-hop by a range of musicians, dancers and visual artists, mainstream media tend to focus upon commercial hip-hop from the US almost exclusively.

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Urban Soundscapes and Critical Citizenship

27^th & 28^th March, 2014, Limerick, Ireland

In this interdisciplinary conference, we explore the intersection of soundscapes and acoustic ecology studies (Murray Schafer 1977; Truax 1978) with urban, applied ethnomusicology’s focus on human subjects (Hemetek and Reyes 2007; Jurková 2012) and with sociological understandings of the cultural restructuring of urban space (Fainstein and Campbell, 2011; LeGates 2011; Bridge and Watson 2010), through an evocation of ‘critical citizenship’ (Nell et al, 2012).

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Atlantic Sounds: Ships and Sailortowns

International Conference, Friday 14 – Saturday 15 March 2014
Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool, UK
http://www.open.ac.uk/atlanticsounds

The Atlantic Sounds network aims for a better understanding of music in Atlantic World encounters. It represents a largely unexplored interdisciplinary area, situated around ethnomusicology, popular musicology, maritime history and urban history. This major international conference is the final event of the AHRC-funded phase of the network and builds on three specialised colloquia in 2013. We welcome submissions from speakers who participated in previous events.

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IASPM UK and Ireland Biennial Conference: Worlds of Popular Music

University College, Cork, 11-14 September 2014

Keynote Speaker: Professor David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds)

Keynote title: ‘Music and the Affective Turn’

Popular music creates worlds around its listeners, temporary, often intimate, and feelingful environments within which the act of listening occurs. It meanwhile plays significant roles in the global flows of capitalism, politics, tourism and migration, and inflects the virtual spaces opened up online by digital technology. New research work, of all approaches, is welcome; those proposing papers should make clear how their presentation will shed new light on the relationships that emerge between types or instances of popular music and their most salient surrounding contexts, for instance, along the lines of one of the following questions:

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International Festival for Artistic Innovation

Leeds College of Music is pleased to present the launch of the International Festival for Artistic Innovation (IFAI) that will take place on 10-14 March 2014. IFAI will act as an umbrella to embrace a diverse range of music making and practice-led research. Established annual events, the International Festival for Innovations in Music Production & Composition (iFIMPaC) and the Leeds International Jazz Education Conference (LIJEC), will form part of the Festival along with developments dedicated to contemporary classical and popular musics.

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Creativity, Circulation and Copyright: Sonic and Visual Media in the Digital Age

28-29 March 2014

Over the past two decades, digital technologies have fundamentally altered the ways that musical and audiovisual media are created, circulated and received. As musical and audiovisual content has been made available in multiple formats through a variety of media platforms, there has been a multifaceted convergence of visual and sonic media, of production and consumption, and of corporate and grassroots artistic endeavours. Creators, promoters and audiences have responded in a variety of ways to the new challenges and opportunities. And, at the same times as media industries’ adaptive strategies are shifting users’ expectations and experience of audio-visual content, participatory use is constantly stretching and testing the legal frameworks of copyright law.

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