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March 2010

BFE Annual Conference: Registration now open

The registration and accommodation booking pages are no 'live' at www.bfeconference.org. If you have any questions about either, please contact Ioannis Polychronakis at ioannis.polychronakis@music.ox.ac.uk. The preliminary conference programme is available on the website, too. If your paper has been accepted for presentation, please contact the conference organiser for information about presentations, powerpoint, memory sticks, visas etc. We are very much looking forward to seeing you in Oxford in April!

Call for new Co-editor for Ethnomusicology Forum

The British Forum for Ethnomusicology is seeking to appoint to a new Co-editor for its journal Ethnomusicology Forum which is published by Routledge Journals (Taylor and Francis Group). Deadline for nominations (including self-nominations) is the 12 March 2010. For further information, please read the enclosed document.

Danica Janković & Maud Karpeles: An exploration of the historic connection between two leading 20th Century Folklorists based in Serbia and Great Britain

The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) runs Cecil Sharp House, and in this historical building is the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML). The VWML is a most significant library and archive for traditional culture in the UK. See http://www.efdss.org/aboutvwml.html. A ‘Danica S. Jankovic Memorial’ book was recently rediscovered in the VWML. It is an apparently unique book from 1960, made as a loving tribute following Danica’s death in that year, comprising many letters of support and condolence written to Ljubica Jankovic at that time as well as rare, original photos of Danica and Ljubica S. Jankovic throughout their lives. Its place in the archive at Cecil Sharp House is evidence of an old connection between EFDSS in London and Danica Jankovic in Beograd, in particular that Danica became friends with a founder member of EFDSS, Maud Karpeles OBE, probably in the 1920s.

(Photo from Danica S. Jankovic Memorial book, courtesy VWML)

These two women had much in common - both carried out pioneering collecting trips to remote parts of the world, both were at the forefront of the early 20th Century folk ‘revival’, both were high-achieving scholars in a very new discipline. Danica Jankovic and Maud Karpeles were also influential members of the EFDSS and the International Folk music Council (IFMC), from its creation in London in 1947. To commemorate 50 years since the death of Danica Jankovic and to celebrate the warm international friendship that existed between these two ground-breaking folklorists, the EFDSS and the London Gypsy Orchestra are joining forces to present OPA CUPA! – a big Serbian/UK celebration of traditional dance, music and songs at Cecil Sharp House, the home of EFDSS, on Saturday 20th March 2010. Special Guests: The Zifko Firfov Folklore Group, formed over 50 years ago, specializing in songs and dances from the former Yugoslavia. In their collection of costumes are many originals dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. There will be an ‘Archive Corner’ at this event, courtesy of the VWML, where it will be possible to view photographs and read articles from the Danica S. Jankovic Memorial Book, and study articles written by the Jankovic Sisters in English and Serbian, as well as learn about the amazing ethnomusicology (and ethnochoreology) of The Jankovic Sisters and Maud Karpeles whilst listening to rare archive recordings of Yugoslavian folk music selected from the VWML Sound Archive especially for the occasion! More information and Tickets can be found here: http://www.efdss.org/cshevents.html#lgo. Please find attached an article from the EFDSS about the connection between Danica S. Jankovic and Maud Karpeles. Please contact Stewart Morgan, EFDSS Administrator, on info@efdss.org with any queries or comments. Thank You / Hvala

World Arts: A new Master’s degree Program at the University of Bern, Switzerland

Since autumn 2009, the University of Bern, Switzerland, offers a new master’s degree program in World Arts. The new program promotes an integrated investigation of various artistic media and modalities (such as visual, musical, performing, and literary arts) from multiple cultures within a framework of cultural studies. Within this context, students will receive grounding in theoretical and methodological courses with narrower focuses in disciplinary courses offered by the departments associated with the Center for Cultural Studies at Bern University. For a more detailed description, please see flyer attached to this email. A master’s degree (MA) in World Arts enables students to proceed with further academic studies in any of the associated disciplines. Furthermore, students can pursue a career in non-academic fields such as art and music therapy, cultural journalism and management, museum management or intercultural mediation. The program in World Arts invites students with a Bachelor’s degree in Art History, Musicology/Ethnomusicology, Theatre Studies or in another discipline with a demonstrated interest in arts. For further information please contact: Dr. des. Sarah Ross, Institut fuer Musikwissenschaft, Kulturelle Anthropologie der Musik, Hallerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Phone: +41 (0)31 631 31 94, Fax: +41 (0)31 631 34 59, Email: sarah.ross@musik.unibe.ch, www.musik.unibe.ch. You may also download a flyer in English about the MA in World Arts.

Congratulations to Dr. des. Sarah Ross

Dr. des. Sarah Ross has recently finished her PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Theatre Rostock, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Ellen Koskoff (Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester) and Prof. Hartmut Möller (University of Music and Theatre Rostock). Her dissertation is entitled "Performing the Political in American Jewish-Feminist Music" and is based on a three year research among liberal Jewish communities in the United States. Her thesis provides a case study of the Jewish-American community as it grew and became politicized since the 1960s/1970s and onwards into the 21st century.
During that time, the growth of interest in non-western and American folk musics, of feminism, and of Jewish-American identity intersected to create a powerful nexus of social and artistic forces. The dissertation documents this moment and the moments that followed, as Jewish women began to take their religious, social and musical place beside their male counterparts. Within this context, the project was led by the overall research question of what the core values and concepts of contemporary Jewish feminism, so-called New Jewish Feminism (since 1990s) are, and how those are performed through music. The aim of the project was to collect and analyze Jewish-feminist music, which has not been studied in detail before. By discussing Jewish-feminist music along the lines of the Jewish-feminist theological concepts of Torah, Israel and God, the project reveals how Jewish feminist music both initiated and helped to maintain a balance between Jewish traditional practices and new feminist innovation. Sarah is now working as the assistent of Prof. Britta Sweers (Cultural Anthropology of Music) at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Many congratulations!

First International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music

University of Massachusetts Amherst: 19–21 February 2010
Website: http://www.analysisworldmusic.com/
This conference, sponsored by the University of Massachusetts and Yale University, arose from interest among music theorists and ethnomusicologists in the development of analytical approaches to music from beyond the Western classical canon. It was an innovative and stimulating encounter between two groups of scholars of differing orientation that too rarely interact.
Keynote addresses were given by Michael Tenzer and Kofi Agawu. Tenzer set the tone of the event with his paper “On the nature of cyclic time in music”, in which he proposed a general theory of cyclic rhythm, arguing against Kramer’s equation of cyclic time with stasis. He illustrated his thesis with analyses of Balinese gamelan, Aka song and jazz, showing complex structural relationships within and between cycles; discussion raised issues over the definition of cyclic time that remain to be resolved. Agawu’s paper “Against ethnotheory” challenged the presumption that analysis of African music should be limited to the terms of an indigenous music-theoretical discourse that, in his view, does not exist as such, and asserted the validity of cross-cultural analytical engagement with all musics—an argument perhaps already familiar to the ethnomusicologists present.
Discussion of these and related issues occupied three plenary sessions, in the course of which special guest Simha Arom stressed the urgent need for a neutral terminology for cross-culturally observable musical stuctures, and defended his view that explicit knowledge of musical structure is articulated in indigenous Aka nomenclature; and Arom and Tenzer jointly proposed a typology of time organization in music. Formal responses came from Richard Widdess, Richard Cohn, Jay Rahn and Godfried Toussaint, and the informal debates were lively.
Papers addressed a variety of themes in two parallel sessions and a poster display. There was strong regional interest African, South Asian and gamelan musics, with individual contributions on jazz, Cuban music, Hebrew, Greek and Koranic cantillation of sacred texts, and Iranian and Chinese art-musics. Methodologies included information theory, set theory, cognition, cantometrics, computer analysis, phenomenology, phylogenetics and mathematical modelling.
Papers included innovative and revealing applications of specific analytical tools to specific pieces or performances, such as Panagiotis Mavromatis’ application of schema theory and finite state grammar to Greek Orthodox chant; John Roeder’s quasi-real time parsing of a Chinese Silk-and-Bamboo melody; Leslie Tilley’s application of information theory to gamelan and Beethoven (with surprisingly similar results!); and Stephen Larson’s application of Schenker to (Ravi) Shankar. Ethnomusicologists gave more culturally based accounts, including Chloe Zadeh’s analysis of thumri performance in relation to social history, and Marc Perlman’s paper on the history of gamelan notation from postcolonial and cognitive perspectives. In a more philosophical reflection, Nicholas Cook noted the problems of universal models of musical analysis, and advocated instead a “relational musicology” in which cross-cultural analysis would be viewed as a “dynamic transaction between cultures”.
Plans for a second conference in two years’ time, and for a new on-line journal, are under discussion.
Richard Widdess, Department of Music, SOAS

CALL FOR PAPERS: 15th International Meeting of CHIME

The European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, 24 to 28 November 2010, Basel, Switzerland

The music of China and East Asia: Theory versus Practice
How does musical theory in China and East Asia differ from musical theory elsewhere in the world? What are its unique contributions to culture and to musical performance? How can we meaningfully integrate theory and practice in the (many) cases where theory and performance practice clash? These questions form the theme of the 15th International CHIME meeting, to be held in Basel from 24 to 28 November 2010 in conjunction with the Swiss festival Culturescapes.
CHIME is a worldwide network of scholars and afficionados of Chinese and East Asian music. The annual meetings are open to interested scholars and students in the realms of musicology, ethnomusicology, popular culture, anthropology, and East Asian languages, cultures and religion, but also to anyone else with a professional or private passion for Chinese and East Asian music. The official language of the meeting is English. (Presentations in Chinese and in other languages can be accepted if speakers provide a written translation of their presentation in English in advance.)
For the Basel 2010 edition of CHIME, scholarly proposals for individual papers, panels and poster presentations are welcomed. Abstracts of up to 300 words for individual (20-minute) papers and for posters should be sent by e-mail to the Dutch main office of the CHIME Foundation, c/o Programme Committee of the 15th CHIME Meeting, P.O.Box 11092, 2301 EB Leiden, The Netherlands, e-mail address: chime@wxs.nl. In the case of panel proposals we ask for a short description of the panel topic as well as for individual abstracts by the panel participants. Abstracts must have reached us by 15 May 2010. Possibilities exist for early acceptance of papers for those who need to rely on this for grant applications. As always, we look forward to a lively meeting, including various recitals and concerts of tradtional Chinese music. More news on the meeting and on possibilities for pre-registration can be found on the CHIME website at http://home.wxs.nl/~chime.

Performing Englishness in New English Folk Music and Dance

Key findings from the two year AHRC funded research project, "Performing Englishness in New English Folk Music and Dance", undertaken by Dr Trish Winter and BFE member Dr Simon Keegan-Phipps at the University of Sunderland Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, were presented on Tuesday 19th January to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Folk Arts at Westminster. An invited audience of MPs, scholars and peers heard central conclusions from the project's closing report:

"Over the last ten years there has been a resurgence of interest in the English folk arts with new artists exploring their English heritage of tunes, songs and dances, and established artists finding new audiences. In addition folk festivals in England, such as Towersey Village Festival, are experiencing great popularity. Whilst grass roots involvement in folk flourishes, a developing folk industry is also playing a central role. At a time when processes like devolution and globalization are prompting debate about English identity, the folk arts are increasingly significant as a place for the negotiation of new English identities that both celebrate English cultural traditions and embrace the diversity of Britain's multicultural present. The English folk arts are politically contested. The BNP have shown an interest in using the folk arts for the furthering of a nationalist agenda, but the emergent campaign Folk Against Fascism has acted as a focus for English folk artists' resistance to this, demonstrating that the English folk scene values an inclusive ideology. The report suggests that, as interest in English identity continues to grow, a clear understanding and backing of the contemporary folk arts among policy makers and the media may also assist in avoiding their appropriation by the far-right."

The presentation was followed by a round table discussion chaired by the All Party Group's chairman, John Battle MP, who confirmed that he would pass the project's closing report to the respective offices of the Home Secretary and Culture Secretary. The report, along with more information about the project and the researchers, is available from the project's blog: http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/newenglishfolk/. A fuller account of the research findings will appear as a co-authored book by Winter and Keegan-Phipps in 2010-11.