Please respond by 1 July 2019 

The British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE) invites expressions of interest from institutions interested in hosting the BFE Annual and One-Day Conferences in 2020 and 2021.

Annual Conferences 2021

BFE Annual Conferences run for four days (from Thursday to Sunday) and are usually held in April during the Easter vacation period. Annual Conferences typically have a theme, although delegates may present research on any subject of interest to ethnomusicologists.

A summary of past Annual Conferences can be found at https://bfe.org.uk/conference-archive-annual. The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen will host the 2019 gathering on ‘Collaborative Ethnomusicology’; and Bath Spa University will host the 2020 gathering.

One-Day Conferences 2020

BFE One-Day Conferences are usually held on Saturdays in November (although late October and early December are also possibilities). They are more narrowly themed than Annual Conferences and focus on specific, sometimes emerging, areas of ethnomusicologicial enquiry. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.

A summary of past One-Day Conferences can be found at https://bfe.org.uk/conference-archive-one-day. The 2019 conference is hoped to be a collaboration between the BFE and SFE, to be held at City, University of London.

Expressing Interest

For further information or informal conversations about the possibility of hosting these conferences, please contact Matthew Machin-Autenrieth at mm2085cam.ac.uk (in relation to the annual conference) and Stephen Wilford at stw31cam.ac.uk (in relation to the one-day conference). We would be happy to meet to discuss hosting during the forthcoming Annual Conference at the University of Aberdeen.

To express interest, please send no more than one side of paper outlining

• a proposed theme (in the case of the One-Day Conference);

• who will be responsible for planning the event;
• the advantages of hosting it at your institution.

We are delighted to share the news that BFE Member Dr. Moshe Morad and Dr. Amalia Ran’s edited volume “Mazal Tov Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas”, has won at SEM this year’s inaugural Jewish Music Special Interest Group Paper Prize. Addressing the winners, Prof. Michael Figueroa, Associate Director, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has announced:

“The award committee felt that your work deserved the prize for a number of reasons, not least because of the many ways it pushes the field of Jewish music studies to engage with the conceptual frameworks offered by hemispheric studies. The diversity of case studies and scholarly voices included in the book are especially notable. We are grateful for your contribution to Jewish music studies. Thank you for sharing your intellectual and your label with the Jewish music studies community.”

Dr. Michael Figouera presenting the Jewish Music Studies SIG award to Dr. Moshe Morad at SEM 2018 in Albuquerque.

Members of the BFE will be delighted to know that one of our members, Dr Stephen Millar has been showcased on the Leverhulme website for his Early Career Fellowship at Cardiff with Prof. John Morgan O’Connell. It is great to see ethnomusicology receiving high quality research funding from as prestigious a UK funder as Leverhulme. If any other members have similar news stories please get in touch to let others know at chairbfe.org.uk.

https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career-fellowships/music-conflict-and-ulster-loyalism

We are pleased to announce the opening of the 2019 BFE Fieldwork Grants scheme (open from 1st Nov). The BFE Fieldwork Grants are intended to support doctoral candidates conducting ethnomusicological field research in the UK and abroad through making a contribution towards the costs of travel and subsistence. Up to 3 grants collectively totalling up to £1500 will be awarded for the 2019 scheme. For further details on the award and guidance on how to apply, please visit the BFE Fieldwork Grants Scheme page of the BFE website. Good luck!