NEW YORK STATE- ST LAWRENCE AMS CHAPTER MEETING, SPRING 2002

The Spring 2002 meeting of the New York State - St Lawrence Chapter will take place Saturday and Sunday, April 6 and 7 at the School of Performing Arts SUNY Geneseo.

Please note that aNyone wishing to present a paper at the meeting should be a member of the national AMS, as well as a member of the chapter.  Dues for the chapter can be paid to Joan Evans (see the dues form below that accompanies this communication).

Members of the chapter who wish to present a paper should send a 250-word abstract by February 7 to the program chair at Geneseo:

Please include a return email address and regular mail address with your abstract, along with your institutional affiliation or city. Electronic submissions are preferred, but paper copies may be mailed to (please send 3 copies):

The chapter presents an award for the best paper by a graduate student; when submitting abstracts, please indicate if you are a student and wish to be considered for the award.

At the April 2000 chapter meeting at Ithaca College it was agreed that presenters should adhere to a 25-minute time limit, but that the program committee, at its discretion, could allot up to 40 minutes for a presenter. Those wishing to be considered for the longer time slot should state their reasons when submitting an abstract.

SUNY Geneseo is a selective liberal arts college with 5000 students, located in the historic landmark village of Geneseo, and nestled in the scenic Genesee River Valley near Conesus Lake and Letchworth State Park.

IASPM UK and Ireland Conference 2002

University of Newcastle, 16-18 July

'Popular Music Studies: Where Now?'

Popular music studies is now a firmly established academic discipline. In particular, the work of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music has facilitated the emergence of a global community of researchers whose work illustrates the central importance of popular music in relation to a range of social formations and cultural forms in both global and local contexts. Recent developments in popular music studies relate, for example, to the complex interplay between global and local music-making practices, the impact of new technologies, and the variety of ways of interpreting the music in the context both of cultural change and numerous theoretical debates. Despite this high level of activity, however, the extent of dialogue between academic researchers, creative practitioners, and music educators remains disappointing.

The aims of the conference will be to reflect on the issues outlined above, and to offer thoughts on the questions where popular music studies is now, and where it is going (or ought to go). We are interested both in general theoretical reflections and in concrete studies which illustrate the arguments. We anticipate grouping discussions into the following areas:

1. Popular music: commerce, creativity and cultural policy
   How is 'creativity' to be defined and promoted in this sphere? Political, geographical and institutional considerations are all relevant, together with issues of censorship, market pressures and generic convention, not to mention philosophical considerations to do with taste, identity and agency.
2. Teaching popular music
   How do/should schools and FE/HE institutions approach this? What issues to do with pedagogy, sociological categories, aesthetics and canons are involved?
3. Understanding Popular Music
   What methods are now used, or may be considered for use, in the study of popular music? What topics or areas of research are useful, or might be considered for use? Theoretical papers and concrete applications are equally welcome.

Proposals which do not appear to fit neatly into the above categories but which break new ground are also welcome.

Form of papers

The standard format is the twenty-minute paper. However, proposals for panel discussions, workshops, and poster presentations are also welcome.

Deadline for proposals

Proposals for individual presentations, of not more than 300 words, and for group activities, of not more than 500 words, should be submitted to Richard Middleton by 1 March 2002. Please include full contact details with your proposal, which should preferably be sent by e-mail, to

richard.middleton@ncl.ac.uk
(attachments should be sent in RTF or some other generic format). If e-mail is impossible, the postal address is:

Professor Richard Middleton
Department of Music
University of Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.

Anyone wishing to register for the conference should contact Richard Middleton for a Registration Form.

Second Annual Music Graduate Student's Association (MGSA) Conference

April 13, 2002, University of Toronto

The MGSA will host a graduate conference this spring, the purpose of which is to provide a student-friendly forum for academic dialogue about all aspects of music. We solicit proposals from graduate students for papers, round-tables, lecture-recitals or other creative means of dialogue on topics relating to music - musicology, music history, music theory, music education, composition, etc. Interdisciplinary topics are encouraged.

Those interested in participating should send a 250- to 500-word abstract via email to Benita Wolters-Fredlund (b.wolters@utoronto.ca) or Leanne Fetterley (l.fetterley@utoronto.ca) by March 1, 2002.

Expanding Interdisciplinarity Through Opera: Upcoming Symposia hosted by the Humanities Initiative at the Munk Centre, University of Toronto

All events will be held in the Vivian and David Campbell Conference Facility and are free and open to the public. You may register by email at events.munk@utoronto.ca or telephone at 416.946.8194.

Iron Road: Intersecting Dreams and Dialogues

Friday March 1, 2002, 1:00-5:00 pm

Premiered last April by Tapestry New Opera, Iron Road is a Chinese Canadian opera about the building of the railroad in British Columbia in the 1880s. The first of two panels will bring together several members of the original creative team, including the composer, Chan Ka-Nin, to discuss their dreams in realizing the opera. A second panel made up of professors and graduate students from U of T will examine the rich vein of issues and themes raised in the opera: Orientalism and Occidentalims; postcolonial experience and minority discourse; immigrant experiences and race and gender relations in Canadian history; current immigration policy and ethics; and the building and dismantling of Canada's national dream.

The Many Lives of Boris Godunov

Saturday April 6, 2002, (9:30 - 5:00 pm)

Co-organized with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, this symposium brings together three of the world's leading experts in Russian hisotry, literature, and musicology to explore the pre-operatic hisotry of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and its many texts and staged meanings. Chester Dunning (Texas A & M University), Caryl Emerson (Princeton University), and Marina Frolova-Walker (University of Cambridge) delve into aspects of the historical Boris and Dmitry, Pushkin's play, and Russian identity. The day will be rounded out with exploratory panels and live musical performances.

The Symposium will coincide with the Canadian Opera Company production of Boris Godunov. For tickets, please call the COC at 416.872.2262.

1. Margaret Walker's (University of Toronto) review of the video-documentary for the South Asian Women's Forum <www.sawf.org> is posted on their website. The film is entitled "Our Songs, Our Stories: North Indian Women's Musical Autobiographies" and was made by ethnomusicologist Amelia Maciszewski.

2. The University of Toronto New Music Festival will take place February 5-10, 2002 at the University of Toronto. Please see the website at http://www.ots.utoronto.ca/users/nmf/