The Call For Papers is now open for the 2018 BFE/RMA Study Day, to be held on 8th December at the University of Oxford. The topic of this conference will be ‘Music and the Internet’. Proposals are invited for papers of 20-minutes, which will each be followed by 10 minutes of discussion. The keynote address will be given by Professor Georgina Born and the day will conclude with a roundtable on digital research methodologies. We particularly welcome papers by graduate students and early career researchers. For more details, click on the following link: https://bfe.org.uk/conf/bferma-study-day-2018-oxford

“Queerness, Voice, Embodiment”, 2^nd Symposium of the LGBTQ+ Music Study Group, 20^th-21^st April 2018, Maynooth University

Symposium Report by Thomas Hilder

The symposium “Queerness, Voice, Embodiment” took place from 20^th to 21^st April 2018 at Maynooth University, Ireland. It was the second annual symposium of the LGBTQ+ Music Study Group, an organization established in 2016 to bring together scholars of different disciplinary and sub-disciplinary backgrounds interested in music, gender and sexuality. In line with the Study Group’s ethos, the event set out to elicit current queer and feminist perspectives on musical performance, particularly the voice, with a desire to nurture approaches informed by notions of embodiment, theories of intersectionality, and critiques of neoliberalism. Through a range of formats – including a keynote lecture, roundtable discussions, presentations, and invited themed panels – the symposium raised broader issues of local and global LGBTQ+ politics as well as pressing issues of diversity and wellbeing in contemporary higher education.

The symposium began on the Friday morning with a welcome by the chair and lead organizer Danielle Sofer (Maynooth University). This was immediately followed by a discussion about safe spaces by the Study Group chair Thomas R. Hilder (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim) and a 30-minute “speed-networking” exercise, whereby participants briefly introduces themselves to as many other people in the room.

The academic rigour and critical poise of the symposium was set by the keynote speaker, Liam Lillis Ó Laoire (NUI Galway). His paper “Thinking about Race with Traditional Irish Song” beautifully weaved together reflections on whiteness, gender and sexuality through inspecting canonical Irish folk music in contemporary, multi-ethnic and postcolonial Ireland. Further explorations of gender, sexuality and ethnicity in Irish contexts were offered through an invited panel on the second day. Here, Moynagh Sullivan (Maynooth University) examined Irish national identity by critiquing the received hetero-patriarchal cannon of Irish-British pop stars and posited alternative feminist and queer lineages. Her fellow panellist, the cabaret and burlesque performer Shir Madness offered an eloquent critique of cultural appropriation in burlesque performance by drawing on her own experiences as a postcolonial Irish citizen.

Intersections of gender, sexuality and coloniality were also addressed in several other presentations, including a study of queer Cuban dancing bodies by Moshe Morad (Tel Aviv University) and an analysis of the South African queer artist of colour Umlilo by Ernst van der Wal (Stellenbosch University/Humboldt University of Berlin). Chris Stover’s (Arizona State University) presentation on the composer-improviser-activist Sun Ra, and the organised panel on falsetto, countertenors and male sopranos by Michael Arshagouni, Robert Crowe and Morgan Crowley drawing on their work as musicologists and performers, explicitly explored the voice. The theme of embodiment was explored in different guises, through a study of lip-syncing in RuPaul’s Drag Race by Manuel Pinto (University of Groeningen), reflections on gendering in ballet education in the UK by Jonathan Still (UCL Institute of Education), and an analysis of the composition, performance and reception of the works by the US composer Harry Partch by John Hails (Edinburgh Napier University).

Meanwhile, issues of queer subjectivities was the focus of Marion Wasserbauer’s (University of Antwerp) presentation of her beautiful oral history project “Queer Voices”, which involved interviews with queer-identifying people in Belgium and discussions of their musical tastes and personal biographies. Ethnographic methods also informed the work of David Buschmann (University of Bern), who presented on issues of safe spaces in Berlin queer clubs. Several presenters offered analyses of queer identifying artists, such as the US pop star Annie Clarke by Megan Rogerson-Berry (Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton), and the US organist Cameron Carpenter by Laura Wahlfors (Sibelius Academy). To compliment, Magdalena Fürnkrantz (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) uncovered new perspectives on jazz musicians of the Harlem renaissance, and Mark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) offered a reassessment of twentieth century Irish composers, continuing a tradition within queer approaches to reveal hidden LGBT histories. Other presentations included a model for queer listenings of J.S. Bach by Nick Bonadies (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), an analysis of film music in Derek Jarman’s Edward II by Richard Piatak (University of Huddersfield), and the preliminary ideas for a project on social networking amongst LGBT musicians by Pam Burnard (University of Cambridge).

(Photograph by Christina Appleby)

 Another key focus of the symposium was issues of health and wellbeing. This was addressed in a roundtable on mental health in higher education which featured the speakers John Hails, Annie Hanlon (Dundalk Institute of Technology), Sarah Hawes (Maynooth University), Christopher Morris (Maynooth University), and Aoife Fennel (Maynooth University). Drawing on their experiences as students, lecturers, heads of department, and welfare and equality officers, the speakers offered their own insights into, and strategies for dealing with the marked rise in mental health issues amongst students and staff in music departments. As Annie Hanlon reminded us, levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide are higher among LGBTQ people, and the panellists urged for greater awareness and the implementation of new policies at universities. Such issues were a stark reminder of one of the main aims of the Study Group, to create a support network for LGBTQ identifying students, scholars and musicians and to provide a forum for issues of diversity and inclusion in the academy.

Overall, the symposium was a huge success. Participants hailed from numerous countries – including South Africa, Belgium, New Zealand, Finland, the USA, Austria, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Ireland and the UK – demonstrating the growth in interest in issues of music, gender and sexuality, and the expansion of the Study Group network. The careful curation of the event by the programme committee, especially the host Danielle Sofer, created a supportive and jovial atmosphere, promoted critical scholarship and discussions, and engendered a strong sense of politics. Through the diverse participants, contributions and formats, the symposium continued the Study Group’s role as an academic forum with activist and outreach aspirations. The Study Group committee would like to thank all the student helpers and our funders, including the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, the Royal Musical Association, the Society for Musicology in Ireland and Maynooth University.

Participants at the symposium were shocked and saddened to hear of the death of David Buschmann just weeks after having presented at the event. David had recently completed his MA in Graz, Austria, and was just beginning a PhD in Bern, Switzerland. The Study Group offers our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

The RMA and BFE welcome expressions of interest from PhD students to host a study day in music studies. The societies are able to provide financial and organisational support for a themed event that aims to connect ethnomusicological and musicological approaches. The study day is intended to be largely by and for students, but with the participation of more senior academics welcome. By way of guidance, previous years' themes have included: Music and Mobilities; Music, Circulation and the Public Sphere; and Music, Wellbeing and Mental Health.

If you are interested, please send a short proposal including institutional details, theme, the name of an academic mentor who is willing to support the study day, and the format of the event to:

Matthew Machin-Autenrieth (mm2085cam.ac.uk)
Steve Wilford (stephen.wilford.1city.ac.uk)
Susan Bagust (sjbagustonetel.com)

Deadline for expressions of interest: 18th June
 

The BFE Student Prize for 2018 recognises an outstanding paper presented by a student at this year’s BFE Annual Conference, hosted by the University of Newcastle, 12-15 April 2018. We are delighted to award the prize to Katie Young (Royal Holloway, University of London) whose paper is described below. We would also like to thank everyone who submitted a paper this year, and all BFE student members are encouraged to submit papers for next year’s conference at the University of Aberdeen in 2019.

Katie Young – ‘“If You Know Arabic, Indian Songs Are Easy For You”: Hindi Film Songs and the mawlid in Tamale, Northern Ghana.’

This very well researched ethnographic paper provides fascinating insights into memory and pedagogy in Hindi film reception in cinema halls post-1957 by African Muslim audiences in Tamale, Northern Ghana. Young examines how modes of listening learned in Qur’anic schools have affected active response to Hindi film in terms of audition and recitation.  The memorisation of both Arabic religious texts and Hindi songs are revealed to have meanings not associated directly with context but rather with the act of sounding and re-sounding these texts. Young’s original primary research undertaken in 2016 and 2017 on the adaptation of Hindi song melodies in Tamale’s Islamic schools demonstrates how mawlid praises in Arabic have been set to well known Hindi film songs, a practice her interviewees describe as natural due to the similarities of the two non-native languages and the timbral and decorative vocal styles of both the call to prayer and Hindi film song performance.

Young makes a powerful contribution to a range of fields including the study of Islam, linguistics, music learning, (post)colonialism, and South-South cultural flows. Most importantly, through this paper Katie Young suggests an innovative approach to ‘listening’ that combines pedagogy with pleasure and religious doctrine with popular culture, in ways that challenge longstanding boundaries within our research fields. The original and imaginative paper brings together a thorough historical account with lively first-hand descriptions, also supported by very illustrative audio-visual extracts.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to the discipline, and is a pleasure to read.

Dr Fiorella Montero-Diaz (Chair BFE Student Prize Panel)

Dr Sue Miller

Dr Ioannis Tsioulakis