Mapping Music History

University of Aberdeen, 28 March 2024

Maps have long punctuated musicological texts, but only recently have music scholars begun to leverage maps as tools for analysing, organizing, and presenting research. In part inspired by the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities at large, historical musicologists are now paying greater attention to the geographical contexts in which past performances took place. At the same time – and fuelled by the increasing accessibility of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software – they can visualize and analyse complicated trends across time and place with greater ease than ever before. These developments in twenty-first-century digital cartography invite questions about musical practices in the context of other, older sorts of maps. For instance, we might ask how the zoning of civic space has regulated performers’ livelihoods, how travel writing has conditioned listening experiences, or how the policing of bodily display made entertainment venues a focus for state surveillance and control. Building on work across a range of disciplines – including but not limited to music and sound studies; art, literary, and theatre histories; urban geography; heritage and tourism; and digital humanities – this symposium seeks to explore the use of maps as objects and methods in music history.

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New Perspectives on the Musical Analysis of the Voice

International Conference, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France, June 20-21, 2024

For a long time, the voice, embodied and fleeting, remained mute for music analysis. The privilege traditionally accorded by musicology and music theory to writing, both as composition and notation, and to instrumental music often relegated the voice in performance to a second-order, non-objectifiable musical dimension. The literature was dominated by pedagogical (singing treatises), physiological or acoustical,[1] philosophical or psychoanalytical considerations. Furthermore, except for certain singular vocal practices—most of which non-European[2]—, this work focused almost exclusively on singing in the Western art music tradition.

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Academic music associations’ joint letter to Oxford Brookes leadership

IASPM UK & Ireland Chair Prof. Simon Zagorski-Thomas co-signs joint letter from academic music associations to Oxford Brookes leadership urging them to rethink proposed closure of their music department and offering support.

23 November 2023

Dear Vice-Chancellor Prof. Fitt, the Vice-Chancellor’s group, and Board of Governors,

We write to you regarding the proposed closure of the music department and ‘teaching out’ of its programmes, which has caused alarm, distress and shock across our communities.

In the recent days, members of our respective committees have made public statements in support of our colleagues and your students, including on social media, online petitions, in radio interview, and in online articles and newsletters. More are to follow in the coming days. Indeed, the wider support for the OBU Music Department amongst colleagues in academia, music education and the wider music profession and creative industries has provided your colleagues at OBU with a profound sense that their research, teaching and wider cultural impact is met with the recognition that its excellence deserves. But perhaps the most emotionally wrought and impactful stories have been those shared by current and past students, whose experiences of being taught in your music department have enriched lives and shaped careers within the music industry and, crucially, far beyond.

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A Century of Sound: Technology, Culture and Performance

The 8th Global Reggae Conference
+ Sound System Outernational #10
+ UWI 75th Anniversary

The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
14 – 17th February 2024

From the 1940s to present day, sound systems have rocked the world with word, sound and power. From Kingston’s streets to the world’s biggest festival stages, the Jamaican-born institution of the sound system has deeply influenced the way music is produced, performed, remixed and enjoyed all over the world. The 2024 edition of the Global Reggae Conference celebrates and investigates the culture and technology of Jamaica’s most famous musical instrument.

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SEMSEC Annual Meeting 2024

The Society for Ethnomusicology, Southeast and Caribbean Chapter (SEMSEC), is pleased to announce the call for proposals for its 2024 annual meeting, to be held in hybrid format, March 2-3, 2024at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL.

The conference will be hybrid. We look forward to welcoming many presenters to campus in Tampa as well as online.

The Program Committee welcomes proposals from scholars working in a wide range of fields including ethnomusicology, musicology, music education, music theory, dance, art history, political science, anthropology, sociology, area studies, media studies, folklore, performance studies, popular culture, regional studies including but not limited to: African American, Hispanic, Southern, Caribbean studies, Indigenous, and diasporic studies.

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Places for Jazz in 21st Century Europe

Epistrophy, the jazz journal – n°6

Under the scientific direction of:
Stéphane Audard
With the collaboration of :
Mélodine Lascombes, Manon Fabre and Clément Séchaud

Throughout jazz history, changes in the places and contexts of dissemination have been closely tied to the rapid succession of styles and currents. These changes constantly inform who should play what, for whom, and how. The idea of a centre, the United States, and a fringe, the rest of the world, is widely debated in both jazz production and research, even in the earliest periods. It is necessary to consider the diverse range of locations, their associated portrayals, and their interconnections: dance venues, clubs, festivals, recording studios, schools, and so forth.

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Popular Music Education in Europe

Journal of Popular Music Education

Special Issue: ‘Popular Music Education in Europe’ (to be published summer 2025)

Guest Editors

Lucy Green (Emerita Professor of Music Education, UCL, UK)

Avra Pieridou Skoutella (C.C.R.S.M. Cyprus Centre for the Research and Study
of Music)

Europe is comprised of over 50 sovereign states and dependent territories which, within and between themselves, have multifarious cultures, sub-cultures, ethnic and religious groups, along with rich and diverse cultural heritage, values and customs, turbulent histories, and struggles of nationalist movements. Some of its contemporary states and people have been trying for decades to unite the European people under the European Union’s umbrella against the continuous influences of fragmentation, economic interests, histories, nationalism, and ideological and political dilemmas. The current times pose challenges, with wars, financial crises and intense immigrant phenomena. On the one hand, such circumstances largely leave European people limited or blocked by various forms of disadvantage from which they must constantly strive to liberate themselves. On the other hand, they empower people’s motivation for connection and connectivity, for expression and resistance, for empathy and solidarity, for surviving and thriving. In developing this Call for Papers, we are already faced with critical questions that we hope will be explored in the ensuing issue. What is popular music in contemporary Europe? Where did it come from? Who is Europe today, musically? How do the different musical ecosystems of European countries, cultures and sub-cultures influence and/or reflect popular music education? To what extent does music education in Europe acknowledge such influences? What is the relationship between music education and popular music in different educational systems of each country? To what extent can we talk about ‘European popular music’, or shall we talk about ‘Popular music in Europe’? Many more questions such as these are
imaginable.

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Music and the Moving Image Conference XX

Friday, May 24 – Sunday, May 26, New York University

The 20th iteration of the annual Music and the Moving Image Conference invites abstracts for paper presentations (20-min. limit) that explore the relationship between the vast universe of moving images (film, television, streaming media, video games, and advertisements) and that of music and sound. We encourage submissions from scholars and practitioners, as well as from multidisciplinary teams that have pooled their knowledge to develop new perspectives or solve research problems regarding the relationship between music and moving images. Abstracts will be adjudicated according to three factors:

• relevance of the author’s major arguments to existing scholarship;
• significance of the paper as an original contribution to the scholarly community; and
• clarity of presentation, including the use of language accessible to scholars with a variety of specializations.

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Innovation in Music 2024

14-16 June, Kristiania University College, Oslo

“Have you tried THIS?”

Have you ever had the bubbling feeling of joy from discovering a new approach, a piece of hardware, an instrument, a method or perspective, and then enthusiastically sharing your new discovery with your peers?

For Innovation in Music 2024, we want you to tap into the childish enthusiasm of sharing new discoveries, and present research on the things everyone should try!

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Research Convention for the Night Time Economy Summit 2024

Convened by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA)

From Wednesday 7th to Friday 9th February the NTIA, in conjunction with other sector stakeholders, will be convening the third major Night Time Economy summit at Freight Island, Manchester. The event will discuss the important role that the Night Time Economy plays in economic and cultural recovery both across the UK and internationally.

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