Welcome to The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch

Music, Festivals, Heritage

Posted: October 18th, 2016 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Music, Festivals, Heritage

Siena Jazz Archive, Italy. 25-28 May 2017

Keynote Speaker

Professor Andy Bennett, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

In a world where notions of culture are becoming increasingly fragmented, the contemporary festival has developed in response to processes of cultural pluralization, mobility and globalization, while also communicating something meaningful about identity, community, locality and belonging.—Andy Bennett et al,, The Festivalization of Culture

From Woodstock to The Proms, from Burning Man to Montreux, music festivals have a transformative potential; they can help people connect with places and spaces in new ways and play a key role in identity formation. Festivals at their most utopian offer a fantastic space in which to dream and try another world into being.  Equally, they offer opportunities for people to celebrate and engage with their cultural heritage and to re-connect with the past.

We invite submissions for Music, Festivals, Heritage, a four-day multi-disciplinary conference that brings together leading researchers across the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as festival directors, producers and programmers, to explore the relationship between music festivals and cultural heritage.

We welcome contributions that address the conference title from multiple perspectives, including heritage studies, festivals and event research, media and cultural studies, musicology, sociology, cultural theory, music analysis, history, and practice-based research. Music, Festivals, Heritage also aims to feature presentations from both researchers and industry professionals.

Conference topics include but are not restricted to:

  • Established and innovative uses of heritage sites and public spaces
  • Festival sites and cultural memory
  • Transformations of place: music festivals as utopian sites
  • Questions of music genre (e.g. jazz, opera, folk, rock, classical) and the construction of heritage at festival
  • Festival as dull culture: repetition, predictability, boredom
  • The tension between the conservation and the use of heritage sites
  • Festivals and cultural tourism
  • New models of engagement between festivals and cultural heritage
  • Festivals as sites that explore the relationship between tangible, intangible and digital heritage
  • Critical perspectives from festival programmers, producers, organisers
  • The mediation and representation of (heritage and) festival
  • Festival as exclusive community; festival as marginal space
  • From carnivalesque to festivalisation: theoretical approaches and questions of festival
  • The cultural politics of festival sites

Proposals are invited for:

• Individual contributions (20 minutes) – up to 250 words.
• Themed sessions or panel discussions – 250 words per contribution plus 250 words outlining the rationale for the session.
• 75 minute sessions in innovative formats – up to 750 words outlining the form and content of the session.

Please submit proposals (including a short biography and institutional or organisational affiliation) by email in a word document attachment to: [email protected]

The deadline for proposals is 1st December 2016; outcomes will be communicated to authors by 10 January 2017.

All submissions will be considered by the conference committee:

  • Prof Walter van de Leur, Chair (University of Amsterdam/Conservatory of Amsterdam)
  • Prof Helene Brembeck (University of Gothenburg)
  • Prof Nicholas Gebhardt (Birmingham City University)
  • Dr Francesco Martinelli (Siena Jazz Archive)
  • Prof George McKay (University of East Anglia)
  • Professor Beth Perry (University of Sheffield)
  • Dr Loes Rusch (University of Amsterdam/BCU)
  • Prof Tony Whyton (Birmingham City University)
  • Dr Marline Lisette Wilders (University of Amsterdam/University of Groningen)

The conference forms part of the EU JPI Heritage Plus-funded CHIME project, a transnational research project that explores the relationship between European music festivals and cultural heritage sites.  Visit www.chimeproject.eu for further information.  Updates on the conference and information about travel and accommodation will be available on this site over the next few months.