Upcoming Academic Presentations
> September 16-18, 2010, Monte San Savino (Arezzo), Italy.
Conference: ' From Stage to Screen'.
September 16: ' Daydreaming by Mr. Five By Five; Visualizing Music in early Soundfilms'
> March 28-31, 2011, University of London, United Kingdom.
Conference: Art Musics of Israel
Identities, Ideologies, Influences
'Contact and Curiosity:
Merlijn Twaalfhoven's Collaborative Compositions with Arab and Jewish Musicians'
Jewish Music Institute, Forum for Israeli Music
www.jmi.org.uk
Institute of Musical Research
www.music.sas.ac.uk
> April 1-3, 2011, Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
On the occasion of the 375th anniversary of Utrecht Anniversary and the bicentenary of the birth of Franz Liszt as well as the 25th anniversary of The International Franz Liszt Competition, in close collaboration with the Dutch Frans Liszt Kring, we are inviting 20 minute papers for submission based on new research on Liszt, especially those that address the following themes:
Liszt and the Keyboard
Liszt and the Phenomenon of the Piano Competition
Liszt and his Pupils
Liszt Reception
Liszt Mediatized
Collecting Lisztiana
Keynote speakers will include Alan Walker, Serge Gut and Michael Saffle.
Abstracts -of no more than 300 words - should be submitted no later than November 1, 2010, to Emile Wennekes, Organizing Chair. Publication of the contributions in book form is under consideration.
e.wennekes[AT]uu.nl
Recent Academic Presentations
>May 21-23, 2010: New York University Steinhardt (USA)
5th Congress Music and the Moving Image
Daydreaming by Mister Five By Five: Visualizing Music in Early Soundfilms
In the slipstream of The Jazz Singer, Warner Brothers and other companies produced numerous musical shorts - classical and jazz - that display the virtuosity of stage-identified stars. In this paper, a comparison will be made between jazz shorts and
early moving pictures of symphony orchestras in performance, a subject only marginally studied to date as an independent phenomenon in both musicology and film studies. This is a proposal for an integrated approach developed through a comparison between scenography, choreography and film direction (e.g. average shot length).
While the setting in the classical domain remained ‘classical’ in terms of staging and (re)presenting (as will be demonstrated by musical shorts of Willem Mengelberg conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra), jazz performances quickly made intrinsic use of the possibilities of the new medium of film by explicitly staging a narrative, including planned camera positions (for Duke Ellington and Count Basie, among others). To qualify this more concretely, a specific classification is now required.
If we compare the way classical and jazz musicians 'play themselves' for the new medium of film, and thus undertake the theatrics required, at least two levels of quality in ‘performativity’ arise. Within these, the phenomenon of ‘liveness’ plays an intriguing role. This will be analyzed by exploring the tension between the ‘play back’ and the recorded, audial improvisation. I will ultimately argue that musical shorts require a different theoretical treatment than the approaches derived to date from film criticism.
>June 2-4, 2010: University of Salford, Manchester (GB)
Conference Sights and Sounds: Interrogating the Music Documentary
‘You know what soldiers I’m talkin’ about’
: Jimi Hendrix at Berkeley
For die hard watchers of rock concert footage, the very first film to feature Jimi Hendrix as its principal subject, Jimi Plays Berkeley, could be, at first glance, of little interest. Nevertheless, this 1971 Peter Pilafian ‘rockumentary’ is, for many reasons, an unique film within the general ‘Hendrixology’ of (concert) films, rare TV show appearances and postumously created documentaries.
The film’s release offered the first opportunity to watch Hendrix perform at length on screen. In spite of it’s being merely 49 minutes long, the movie presented much more live footage than the then known iconographical, yet short appearances in documentaries about Woodstock and Monterey Pop.
Jimi plays Berkeley
is, however, not a straightforward concert registration. There are many more aspects to this film which make it a hybrid documentary. The images of this concert, in hindsight one of the last by Hendrix before his untimely death later that year, are, for example, consciously presented here side by side with footage of student protest.
This paper raises a series of questions relevant to the documentary format. For example, how relevant are the shots of rioting to the narrative of the concert(s)? To what extent do these actually represent the political position of the musician featured? In what way did the camera crew’s presence influence the events, thusly influencing the narrativity of the film? To what extent does the cameratizing represent late sixties/early seventies esthetics? In short, where does ‘concert registration’ end, and ‘documentary’ begin in this special film of a unique musician who died forty years ago ?
> June 26-27, 2010: 2nd MaM Conference, Humboldt University, Berlin (D)
see for all details the MaM page of this site.
>July 1-3, 2010: Institute of Musical Research, University of London (GB), Senate House
The Symphony Orchestra as Cultural Phenomenon
>July 14-17, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa:
IMS-SASRIM Conference
July 16: ' A Liebestod with China's Founding Father. Eastern empires within western reception: a case study'
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Other Recent presentations:
>March 13, 2010: Amsterdam Conservatory
, Amsterdam (NL), 10.00 AM:
12th Congress of the Society for Music Theory:
Grab it! or how composition emancipates into a format.
The music of contemprary Dutch composer Jacob ter Veldhuis (or Jacob TV as he currently styles himself) is a dazzling reservoir of dualities. The dichotomy between pop and classical music is engaged in a classic duel in his oeuvre. Live performance interacts with previously recorded samples and soundscapes, and the semantic of the spoken word crosses swords with sliced and diced syllables: meaning bites the dust as the sun rises over this artistic confrontation.
Occasionally, sound also struggles for predominance over projected images, giving any piece multi-layered meanings. Jacob TV’s work does not often have just one scoring but is intentionally enriched with multiple rescored versions: a single title can thusly cover a whole series of works.
The various shapes of Grab it!, a work premiered in 1999 as a composition for tenor saxophone and ghetto-blaster, is a good example of such a series of scores. Over the last decade Jacob TV’s catalogue of works has been enhanced by some ten different versions of the piece: there is still daily demand for new ones. Traditionally, these versions would be described as arrangements or adaptations, or, in the case of the video clip version, even as a ‘remediation’, all being based on the same 1999 original.
In this paper Grab it! will be analysed in its different versions and subsequent performative countenances. One could argue that the ‘composition’ emancipates here into a ‘format’. Grab it! no longer belongs to a fixed genre, it has created a tension between the forma formata, the completed form, and a forma formans, a formative form, which, over the years, has gradually turned into a argumentum formans, a formative content.
February 26-28, 2009: Los Angeles, U.S.A.
'Filming with Mengelberg - revisited'
April 16-19, 2009: Hong Kong, China
'Beijng opera and a hammered piano: East meets West in Dutch music'
May 16, 2009: Orgelpark, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
'Creation in the moment of performance: Mengelberg's improvisando demonstrated via his recordings'
July 4-5, 2009: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
-the launch of an IMS Study Group Music and Media, MaM, plus a presentation:
'Brief encounters of a third kind: first Life live concerts in Second Life venues'
July 5-10, 2009: IMS IAML Joint Conference, Amsterdam
'Grab it, Motherfucker, Grab it!: Multiple appearances of a single composition'
November 26-28, 2009: Manchester, United Kingdom
'Play it again, Duke'
December 4, 2009: Utrecht, the Netherlands
‘Live and its Afterlife’
February 13, 2010: Elburg, the Netherlands
'Teneynde het spelen ins goede orde toe gae': as long as the playing goes well.
Glimpses of musical life in Utrecht.
@ @ @ @ @ @
February 26-28, 2009: Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Intellectual Commons, Room 233
Doheny Memorial Library, University of Southern California
At this three-day symposium a group of international scholars will speak on such issues as
sources and archives of film music, issues of accessibility, and editions (and what those would entail).
The latter is particularly important, since no published editions of American film scores currently
exist for study along with the film. The third day of the conference will be linked with the
regional AMS chapter meeting.
Feb 26: 6.30 p.m.: Methodologies II
Moderator: Brian Mann, Vassar College:
Emile Wennekes, Utrecht University: “Filming with Mengelberg – Revisited,”
Todd Decker, Washington University, St. Louis: “8 Brass, 5 Sax, 4 Rhythm: Swing Arrangements
and Arrangers in the Musicals of Fred Astaire,”
Krin Gabbard, SUNY Stony Brook: “Malle Meets Miles: Jazzing the French Cinema”.
8:00 p.m.: Source Studies I
Moderator: Emile Wennekes, Utrecht University:
Volker Straebel, Technical University Berlin: “The optical soundtrack as a means of sound synthesis. Implications of a media-specific art form”,
Miguel Mera, Anglia Ruskin University: “Sketches, Ashes and Music Technology”.
April 16-19, 2009: Hong Kong, China
ACC 109 Jockey Club Academic Conference Center, Shaw Campus, Hong Kong Baptist University
Beijng opera and a hammered piano: East meets West in Dutch music
In western Europe, creative cross-breedings and confrontations between Eastern
and Western music idioms have had an intriguing history. The Netherlands,
a small country that has had commercial ties with Asia for more than four hundred years,
forms an outstanding example in this respect. In the proposed paper,
musical encounters between East and West in recent Dutch music history will be discussed.
Firstly, light will be shed on Ton de Leeuw’s (1929-1996) compositional oeuvre and his
deeply rooted belief that art and philosophy in the West should merge with their
counterparts from the East. Secondly, there are significant and relevant compositional
techniques used by a younger generation:.Guus Janssen (1951) wrote an opera wherein
singers from the Beijng Opera play a significant part (Hier˚, 2000).
In Willem Jeths’ (1959) composition Fas/Nefas (1997) the piano is sardonically
hammered with sicks and treated like a Japanese koto.
A third point of attention will be contemporary ensembles that gather an eclectic
mix of instruments to play styles from all over the world, thusly creating hitherto
unheard music. Bun-ching Lam (1954), Theo Loevendie (1930), Guo Wenjing (1956)
and Jia Daqun (1955) are just a few of the composer’s who have written for the Holland
based Atlas Ensemble. Their specific culture-exceeding works are exemplary of creative
confrontation between East and West.
April 19, 10 a.m.: Session: Cultural Hybridity in Music
Other speakers include: Dipendu Das, India; Joyce Tang, Hong Kong; Steve Emerett, Emory, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Cornelia Szabo-Knotik, University of Vienna, and Hon-Lun, HK Baptist Univeristy.
May 16, 2009:
Orgelpark
, Amsterdam
'Creation in the moment of performance: Mengelberg's improvisando demonstrated via his recordings'
July 4-5, 2009: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
-launch IMS Study Group Music and Media: Call for Papers
The International Musicological Society
Music and Media will be launched as an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary IMS Study Group in a pre-conference preceding the joint IAML-IMS conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The Study Group seeks to examine and explore diverse aspects relevant to the theme of ‘mediatizing music’. We are looking for perspectives from scholars engaged in the fields of musicology, media studies, film studies, theatre etc.
Organizing Chair: Prof. Dr. Emile Wennekes Department of Media and Culture Studies
Utrecht University The Netherlands Email: emile.wennekes[at]let.uu.nl
Commentary: Music plays an important role in media, both in old and certainly in new media: commercials, games, films, ring tones and the like. The other way around, media play an increasing role in music. They have changed the compositional process and characteristics of style; media severely influences performances, composing techniques, the way of recording and visualizing music. What are the theoretical and philosophical consequences of mediatized music? What are the economics behind these processes of mediatization?
What role does the process of ‘remediation’(Bolter & Grusin, 2000), from LP to MP3 and 4, play?
How has mediatization influenced performance practice, what was the ‘phonograph effect?’
(Katz, 1999). What do processes of mediatizing music mean in terms of ‘liveness’ (Auslander, 1999),
‘animated liveness’ (Wennekes, 2009) and/or ‘immersion’ (Grau, 2003)?
-Auslander, Philip, Liveness: Performance in a mediatized culture. (New York: Routledge, 1999).
-Bolter, Jay David & Grusin, Richard, Remediating: Understanding New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press 2000).
-Grau, Oliver, Virtual art: From Illusion to Immersion. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003)
-Katz, Mark, The Phonograph Effect: The Influence of Recording on Listener, Performer, Composer, 1900-1940. PhD Thesis University of Michigan, 1999.
-Wennekes, Emile, ‘Brief encounters of a third kind: First Life live concerts in Second Life concert venues’. In: Thea Brejzek, Wolfgang Greisenegger and Lawrence Wallen (eds.), Monitoring Scenography 2: Space and Truth / Raum und Wahrheit. Institute for Design and Technology (idt) Zurich: Zurich University of the Arts, October 2009.
July 5-10, 2009: IMS IAMAL Conference, Amsterdam
'Grab it, Motherfucker, Grab it!: Multiple appearances of a single composition':
It is not uncommon that scores, orginally intended for one instrument or combination of instruments, are rescored for other instruments – sometimes with a composer’s permission, sometimes without it, sometimes with his(/her) collaboration. Occasionally, idiomatic changes are made. These multiple appearances of a single composition are certainly a challenge to music librarians intent on efficient codification.
A new phenomenon has cropped up in contemporary composition which poses an even greater challenge. Nowadays, one title can cover a whole series of works. The concept of rescoring can be further enriched by ‘remediation’, by adding text samples or images, thusly creating extra layers of meaning.
In this paper the various shapes of Grab it!, a composition by Dutch composer Jacob ter Veldhuis (alias Jacob TV), will be analysed in all its different versions, notations and their subsequent performative countenances. One could argue that the composition turns into a ‘format’ here, instead of belonging to a fixed genre. The piece is no longer a forma formata, to quote Dutch musicologist Frits Noske, not a completed form, but rather a forma formans, a formative form - or perhaps even an argumentum formans, a formative content.
July 10, Amsterdam Conservatorium, 11 a.m.:
Dutch, South-African and Swiss composers: further speakers are
Dr. D. Staverman, Codarts, Rotterdam; Matildie Thom Wium, Bloemfontein, South Africa; Chris Walton
July 10, Amsterdam Conservatorium, 4 p.m.: Wennekes is chair of the session on Performance:
Speakers include Amanda Bayley, University of Wolverhampton, U.K.;Antonio Baldassarre, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vienna; Guido Olivieri, Univeristy of Texas at Austin, USA; Sarah Eyerly, USC, Los Angeles, USA.
November 27, 2009: Manchester, University of Salfort, Conference Mediating Jazz, 4 p.m.:
Play it again, Duke
Visualizing Jazz in the Pre War Years In the process of cinema’s converting to sound, jazz music played a crucial role. The Jazz Singer (1927) is of course the ultimate icon.
But in the slipstream Warner Brother Brothers and other companies produced lots of musical shorts, classical and jazz, that display the virtuosity of stage-identified stars.
In my paper a comparison will be made between jazz shorts and early moving pictures of symphony orchestras in performance, a subject only marginally studied to date as an independent phenomenon both in musicology and in film studies. An integrated approach will be proposed by comparing aspects of scenography, choreography and film direction
(e.g. average shot length). The first Vitaphone recordings from the 1920’s offer more films with classical musicians than with other musical entertainment.
This however changed rapidly in the years to come, especially when the ‘soundy’
became a success.
While the setting in the classical domain remained ‘classical’ in terms of staging and (re)presenting (as will be demonstrated by musical shorts of Willem Mengelberg conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra), jazz performances quickly made intrinsic use of the possibilities of the new medium by explicitly staging a narrative scenery, including dwell thought out camera positions (Duke Ellington, Jimmie Dorsey among others).
If we compare the way classical and jazz musicians 'played themselves' for the new medium of film, and thus undertake the theatrics required, at least two levels of ‘performativity’ arise. Within these, the phenomenon of ‘liveness’ (Auslander) plays an intriguing role. This will be analyzed by the tension between the ‘play back’ and recorded improvisation.
December 4, 2009: Liveness Seminar, Utrecht University: 'Live and its AfterLife'
In most of the cultural theory and performance studies literature, the liveness discussion is not always as deeply worked out within the domain of music as one would hope, whereas this is the art form where the field of tension between live and recorded is so deeply rooted, and has had such consequence. With a history of well over a century, recorded music may on the one hand share our age with the feature film, but its portablity and democratic use makes it on the other hand, quite unique. I this presentation some of my astonishments are shared with the audience, using the literature as a spring board in reference to - for example - the tricky question about the real, or reality in music, or the notion of presentness of the musicians involved.
@ @ @ @ @ @
Presentations 2008-2009:
December 18-19, 2008: Kiel, Germany
Bach-Saal des Musikwissenschaftlichen Instituts
der CAU Kiel
Rudolf-Höber-Straße 3, 24118 Kiel. 13.30 u
'Mengelberg meets the Molech(s) of the New Era: Orchestral Performances in Sound and Vision'
Kieler Symposium zur Filmforschung
Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel
October 9-11, 2008: Zurich, Switzerland
MONITORING SCENOGRAPHY 2: SPACE AND TRUTH / RAUM UND WAHRHEIT
ZÜRCHER HOCHSCHULE DER KÜNSTE (ZHdK) ZURICH UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS
Institute for Design and Technology Postgraduate Program Scenography
http://sceno.zhdk.ch
-Session 12: Virtual Vertigo, Friday October 10, 16.00 hours
Chair: Emile Wennekes
papers by Daniel Tercio, Technical University of London and
Pablo Ventura, Tanzakademie Zurich
-Session 3: (Virtual) Sound Worlds, Friday October 10, 9.30 hours
Chair: Thea Brejzek
papers by Tahera Aziz, London South Bank University,
Pamela Scorzin, Kunstakademie Stuttfart and
Emile Wennekes:
'Brief encounters of a third kind: first Life live concerts in Second Life venues'
(Classical) music within the virtual environment of Second Life (SL) is a niche in research.
To date, neither musicologists nor new media scholars have shown hardly any interest
in this phenomenon. In Baudrillard’s terms[1] SL could be considered a sumulacrum,
even one with ‘immersive’[2] qualities. Music, in a way, has the same qualities;
it can be immersive and is capable of providing a simulacrum.[3]
Music’s function within SL, however, can only be understood at the intersection
of two worlds: Second and First. The sound of music and parts of the visual
footage are created in Real Life, and subsequently ‘streamed’ into SL.
So the signs of ‘the real’ function not only as substitions for ‘the real itself’,
but are now ‘remediated’[4] within a newly created, ‘hyperreal’ context.
Analyzing music within SL, therefore, raises not only questions of a
philosophical and technical nature, but also ones relevant to
performativity, reception, ‘liveness’[5] and even economy. Besides these,
there is the matter of the spatial design of simulated concert venues.
They are either replica or ‘chimaera’, as I would call them - a choice for one or
the other brings with it significant consequences.'
April 11, 2008: London, England
Music, Oppression and Exile:
The Impact of Nazism on Musical Development in the 20th Century
Royal Holloway & Institute of Musical Research - School of Advanced Study, University of London
http://jmi.org.uk/downloads/ExileConferencedraftprogramme.pdf
Institute of Musical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1:
'Some of the Jewish musicians are back at their desks',
a case study in the remigration of European musicians after World War Two
rosa spier
March 12 & 14, 2008: New York, USA
Music, Body, and Stage: The Iconography of Music Theater and Opera, City University of New York
The Tenth Conference of the Research Center for Music Iconography, CUNY &
The Twelfth Conference of the Répertoire Internaitonal D'Iconographie Musicale
photo by András Borgó
'Mengelberg conducts Oberon: The Conductor as Actor, Anno 1931'
'Play it again, Duke'
February 26-28, 2009: Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Intellectual Commons, Room 233
Doheny Memorial Library, University of Southern California
In western Europe, creative cross-breedings and confrontations between Eastern
and Western music idioms have had an intriguing history. The Netherlands,
a small country that has had commercial ties with Asia for more than four hundred years,
forms an outstanding example in this respect. In the proposed paper,
musical encounters between East and West in recent Dutch music history will be discussed.
Firstly, light will be shed on Ton de Leeuw’s (1929-1996) compositional oeuvre and his
deeply rooted belief that art and philosophy in the West should merge with their
counterparts from the East. Secondly, there are significant and relevant compositional
techniques used by a younger generation:.Guus Janssen (1951) wrote an opera wherein
singers from the Beijng Opera play a significant part (Hier˚, 2000).
In Willem Jeths’ (1959) composition Fas/Nefas (1997) the piano is sardonically
hammered with sicks and treated like a Japanese koto.
A third point of attention will be contemporary ensembles that gather an eclectic
mix of instruments to play styles from all over the world, thusly creating hitherto
unheard music. Bun-ching Lam (1954), Theo Loevendie (1930), Guo Wenjing (1956)
and Jia Daqun (1955) are just a few of the composer’s who have written for the Holland
based Atlas Ensemble. Their specific culture-exceeding works are exemplary of creative
confrontation between East and West.
'Creation in the moment of performance: Mengelberg's improvisando demonstrated via his recordings'
-launch IMS Study Group Music and Media: Call for Papers
The International Musicological Society
der CAU Kiel
Rudolf-Höber-Straße 3, 24118 Kiel. 13.30 u
'Mengelberg meets the Molech(s) of the New Era: Orchestral Performances in Sound and Vision'
Kieler Symposium zur Filmforschung
Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel
ZÜRCHER HOCHSCHULE DER KÜNSTE (ZHdK) ZURICH UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS
Institute for Design and Technology Postgraduate Program Scenography
http://sceno.zhdk.ch
-Session 12: Virtual Vertigo, Friday October 10, 16.00 hours
Chair: Emile Wennekes
papers by Daniel Tercio, Technical University of London and
Pablo Ventura, Tanzakademie Zurich
-Session 3: (Virtual) Sound Worlds, Friday October 10, 9.30 hours
Chair: Thea Brejzek
papers by Tahera Aziz, London South Bank University,
Pamela Scorzin, Kunstakademie Stuttfart and
Emile Wennekes:
'Brief encounters of a third kind: first Life live concerts in Second Life venues'
(Classical) music within the virtual environment of Second Life (SL) is a niche in research.
To date, neither musicologists nor new media scholars have shown hardly any interest
in this phenomenon. In Baudrillard’s terms[1] SL could be considered a sumulacrum,
even one with ‘immersive’[2] qualities. Music, in a way, has the same qualities;
it can be immersive and is capable of providing a simulacrum.[3]
Music’s function within SL, however, can only be understood at the intersection
of two worlds: Second and First. The sound of music and parts of the visual
footage are created in Real Life, and subsequently ‘streamed’ into SL.
So the signs of ‘the real’ function not only as substitions for ‘the real itself’,
but are now ‘remediated’[4] within a newly created, ‘hyperreal’ context.
Analyzing music within SL, therefore, raises not only questions of a
philosophical and technical nature, but also ones relevant to
performativity, reception, ‘liveness’[5] and even economy. Besides these,
there is the matter of the spatial design of simulated concert venues.
They are either replica or ‘chimaera’, as I would call them - a choice for one or
the other brings with it significant consequences.'
The Impact of Nazism on Musical Development in the 20th Century
Royal Holloway & Institute of Musical Research - School of Advanced Study, University of London
http://jmi.org.uk/downloads/ExileConferencedraftprogramme.pdf
Institute of Musical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1:
'Some of the Jewish musicians are back at their desks',
a case study in the remigration of European musicians after World War Two
rosa spier
The Tenth Conference of the Research Center for Music Iconography, CUNY &
The Twelfth Conference of the Répertoire Internaitonal D'Iconographie Musicale
photo by András Borgó
'Mengelberg conducts Oberon: The Conductor as Actor, Anno 1931'