Rethinking Jazz Cultures – Conference registration

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Registration
Registration for the 2013 Rhythm Changes II: Rethinking Jazz Cultures Conference is now open. There is an early bird rate and discounted rate for student delegates. Please note that the early bird deadline expires on 28 February. Click here to visit the online registration pages.

Visit the Conference pages of the website for information about travel and accommodation.

If you have submitted a proposal for the event, you will shortly be receiving feedback on your abstract. The Conference Committee received a record number of proposals for the event and Rethinking Jazz Cultures promises to break new ground, being the largest international jazz research conference to date.

Jazz Research Journal special double issue on jazz collectives

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Congratulations to Rhythm Changes project team member Nick Gebhardt of Lancaster University for his sterling work as editor of a special DOUBLE issue (that’s over 200 pages, folks) of Jazz Research Journal on jazz collectives: history, theory, practice. You can read pieces in it by other Rhythm Changers, too, among other contributors: Christa Bruckner-Haring, Andrew Dubber, Petter Frost Fadnes, Loes Rusch, as well as Nick’s authoritative introduction. Vol. 5.1-2.

Photo1

Prof George McKay
MediaCityUK
University of Salford
(sent from my phone)

Social Spaces of Music AHRC conference, Manchester February 13-14 2013

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Social Spaces of Music AHRC conference, Manchester February 13-14 2013.

Music researchers have increasingly explored music as a social practice in which participants have varying degrees of engagement, seeking to analyse the ‘social spaces’ within which music is produced and consumed.  There are a number of competing conceptions of this ‘space’, including music ‘worlds’, ‘fields’, ‘scenes’ and ‘networks’.

This conference brings into dialogue different approaches to researching music, to consider how different conceptual and methodological approaches help us to explore the social spaces of music; and exploring a diverse range of musical genres/arenas including: folk, post-punk; hip-hop, electronica and post-rock; R&B and calypso; Riot Grrrl and Ladyfest; classical; and Italian opera.

Speakers include: Ruth Finnegan, Omar Lizardo, Andy Bennett, Karim Hammou, Marco Santoro, Sara Cohen, Nick Crossley, Nick Prior, Roberta Comunian, Laurence Brown, Keith Gildart, Tim Edensor, Martin Everett, Siobhan McAndrew, Susan O’Shea, Paul Hepburn, Paul Widdop, Isabelle Darmon, Fay Hield, Wendy Bottero

The conference is generously supported by CRESC and the AHRC ‘Music Communities’ pilot demonstrator project under the Connected Communities programme, AH/J006807/1.

 

PLACES ARE STRICTLY LIMITED SO BOOK YOUR PLACE EARLY BY CLICKING ON THE FOLLOWING LINK:

http://www.cresc.ac.uk/events/the-social-spaces-of-music-networks-worlds-fields-and-scenes

Professor George  McKay  

AHRC Leadership Fellow | Connected Communities Programme

MediaCityUK, University of Salford, Manchester M50 2HE, UK

t: +44 (0) 161 295 2694  |  m: +44 (0)779 1077 074

g.a.mckay@salford.ac.uk | CCM Research Centre

george.mckay.org | connected-communities.org

UK Jazz Services survey of Needs of the Jazz Community

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UK agency Jazz Services is currently running a survey. From their email:

“The first initiative is the first-ever survey of the ‘Needs of the Jazz Community’ and gives everybody from musician, promoter, attenders, youth orchestras, educators, organisations – in fact the whole jazz scene – a chance to have their say. This is a great opportunity to voice your opinions on the needs of the jazz community through an online survey hosted on our website.

“The purpose of the exercise is to ascertain the needs of the UK jazz constituency, which will strengthen our case for the equitable treatment of jazz in the UK and inform funding bodies, potential sponsors, Parliament and Government on what is required to continue to develop a healthy jazz scene.

“By completing the survey you’ll be helping to address those needs and ensure that the jazz scene in the UK continues to grow, develop and maintain its vibrancy in the light of public sector cuts and an historical imbalance in the public funding of jazz. It also helps us map the demographic of the scene and enable us to better understand our audience and those we’re trying to help.”

The survey is accessible here:

Jazz in the New Europe/London Jazz Festival

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There is a strong European theme at the London Jazz Festival this year. The Festival has been awarded a grant from the EU Culture Fund to expand its commitment to European programming. The Festival will feature several leading European artists and collaborations including a commission for Henri Texier to create new music for a transnational, mixed generational octet. John Cumming, Director of Serious and the London Jazz Festival (and Rhythm Changes project partner), comments on the importance of this initiative:

“Thanks to support from the Culture Programme of the European Union, this year’s London Jazz Festival presents an exciting programme of international collaboration, featuring the jazz giants and rising stars of the European jazz scene. The Festival will see musicians from across the continent working together to develop new music that breaks through frontiers whilst retaining the individual creativity of each participant. This spirit of exchange and collaboration is at the heart of the Jazz in the New Europe.”

The London Jazz Festival initiative builds on the work carried out by Serious over recent years, including the development of Take Five Europe and and numerous collaborations with European partners, including work with the Rhythm Changes team.

 Questions which are central to the Rhythm Changes project are also embedded within the festival programme. Project Leader Tony Whyton will be chairing the first of two public debates at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday 13 November on the theme of ‘Jazz in the New Europe’ which will include contributions from leading European musicians and journalists. Jonathan Scheele, Head of the European Commission Representation in the UK states:

“It is terrific that the Culture Programme of the European Union is supporting the London Jazz Festival, enabling this internationally renowned celebration of jazz to welcome even more European talent and to showcase exciting collaborations between European artists.”

Rhythm Changes commissioned photographer, Paul Floyd Blake, will also be capturing events at the Festival this year, the results of which will be included in the Rhythm Changes exhibition in 2013.

To find out more about the EU Culture Fund and the London Jazz Festival initiative click here

For details of the ‘Jazz in the New Europe’ panel click here

Rethinking Jazz Cultures

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Rethinking Jazz Cultures provides an opportunity to explore a number of critical questions bound up with jazz and the dynamics of culture, from Americanisation to the politics of migration and race, from the impact of globalisation and the hybridisation of musical styles to the creation of social institutions and distinct communities, from jazz’s shifting aesthetic status from popular to canonical “art” music. Jazz continues to play a complex role in the cultural life of nations worldwide, shaping scenes, constructing communities and cultural values; the music feeds into historical narratives that are marked by conflict and contradiction but the role the music plays in everyday life is rarely understood. Whilst jazz has developed in a range of national settings through different influences and interactions, as evidenced in the first Rhythm Changes Conference in Amsterdam 2011, the music is also a transgressor of the idea of nation. “Rethinking Jazz Cultures”, therefore, aims to explore wider issues surrounding identity and inheritance, enabling unique perspectives on how culture is exchanged, adopted and transformed.

Rethinking Jazz Cultures is a three day multi-disciplinary conference that brings together leading researchers in the fields of jazz studies, media and cultural studies, history and American studies. The event will take place at the University of Salford’s prestigious new building at Media City UK, Salford Quays, commencing with a reception on Thursday 11 April 2013. The Conference committee invites papers and panel proposals that feed directly into the Conference theme and is interested in featuring perspectives from a range of international contexts. Although not restricted to specific themes, possible topics could include:

  • Jazz, Americanisation and the politics of globalisation
  • Sonic cultural identities (African American, the Nordic Tone, South African jazz etc.)
  • Jazz cosmopolitanism
  • Migration and trans-cultural exchange
  • Jazz scenes, contexts and places
  • Sub-cultural practices
  • Genre boundaries and hybridity
  • Trans-national or post-national jazz sounds
  • Postcolonial settings for jazz
  • Jazz collectives and communities
  • Media dissemination and the spread of jazz culture
  • Venues, festivals and the dynamics of culture
  • Jazz, censorship and political struggle
  • Jazz in urban and rural spaces
  • Jazz traditions
  • Cultural politics of jazz
  • Cultural memory and jazz
  • Revising jazz history

The Conference committee welcomes individual papers and proposals for panels and roundtable discussions. For individual papers, abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted. Panels and roundtable proposals should include a session overview, participant biographies and description of individual contributions. Abstracts and proposals (as well as event queries) should be sent to Professor Tony Whyton ( t.whyton@salford.ac.uk ) by 5 November 2012.

Amiri Baraka in Manchester, 10 October 2012

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As part of the Manchester Literature Festival:
Amiri Baraka
With support from Young Identity
Wednesday 10th October, 8pm
At the Contact Theatre
Oxford Road
Manchester

Tickets: 10/6 concessions. Book on 0161 274 0600 or Contact Website

Tilt presents the world-renowned poet Amiri Baraka, a leading figure of the evolution of the spoken word genre, who has influenced politics, artistic practice and cultural change on an international scale. Formerly known as LeRoi Jones, Baraka has produced over 40 books of plays, writing essays, poems and music history, is an esteemed lecturer, and has won numerous awards – including a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and a Rockerfeller Foundation Award. He will be reading from his rich collection of work and talking with Dr Corinne Fowler about his career and influences. Members of Manchester’s talented young writers’ collective Young Identity (supported by Commonword and the Big Lottery) will be warming up proceedings. An unmissable experience produced by Tilt in association with Contact.