Special issue on Contemporary Issues in Live Music 

Call for papers from Arts and the Market

Guest editors:
Dr Chris Anderton, Solent University, Southampton, UK
Dr Sergio Pisfil, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Lima, Peru

Arts and the Market is pleased to announce a Special Issue focused on the intersection of live music with contemporary social and cultural issues.

The past ten years have seen significant global growth in the live music sector, and a burgeoning interest in academia, exploring aspects of live music history, business, technology, culture, reception and space. Recent book-length publications include a three-part series by Simon Frith et al., with monographs in preparation/press from Fabian Holt and Steve Waksman, and forthcoming edited book collections from Angela Jones & Rebecca Jane Bennett, Ewa Mazierska et al. and guest editors Chris Anderton & Sergio Pisfil. The available literature has most strongly focused on music festivals (such as Robinson 2015; McKay 2015; Arnold 2018; Anderton 2019), but the broader field of live music studies is rapidly expanding with a particular interest in areas such as economics, work practices, spatiality and gender.

From small hip-hop gigs in France, to heavy metal concerts in Peru, to massive tours by K-pop bands around the world, live music is now at the heart of the music industry and, as such, has become a particularly rich area of study for understanding societal changes in local and globalised spheres. The current Covid-19 pandemic has brought this sharply into focus as performing musicians and the industry itself strive to adapt to widespread cancellations and an uncertain future.

This special edition of Arts & the Market seeks to make a significant contribution to the expanding area of live music research by examining a range of contemporary social and cultural issues related to live music practices, reception and consumption across a variety of global settings.

To this end, we would like to encourage scholars from a range of disciplines to submit proposals for articles that may address topics that are related, but not limited to, the intersection of live music and issues of community, gender, genre, inclusion and sustainability.

Researchers are invited to send an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a short biography to [email protected] by May 14th 2020.

Prospective contributors with questions regarding the potential suitability of topics, editorial expectations, or any other questions with regard to this special issue are invited to contact the Guest Editors directly by email at the address above.

Feedback on abstracts will be provided by end May 2020.

Authors should subsequently submit completed articles of approximately 6,000–8,000 words (inclusive of bibliography and endnotes) by 30^th September 2020.  Submissions will be made through the Scholar 1 submission system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aatm Authors should select this special issue from the drop down list as part of submission. Submitted articles will be subject to a double blind peer review process.

Reference list:

Anderton, Chris, Music Festivals in the UK: Beyond the Carnivalesque, Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2019.

Anderton, Chris and Sergio Pisfil, Researching Live Music: Gigs, Tours, Concerts and Festivals, Routledge(Forthcoming).

Arnold, Gina, Half a Million Strong. Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018.

Cresswell- Jones, Angela & Rebecca Jane Bennett (eds.), The Digital Evolution of Live Music, Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2015.

“Issues of Diversity and Inclusion in Jazz Festivals” (Special Issue), Jazz Research Journal (forthcoming).

Edgar, Robert, Benjamin Halligan, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs & Nicola Spelman (eds.), The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment, New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Frith, Simon, Matt Brennan, Martin Cloonan and Emma Webster, The History of Live Music in Britain, Volume 1: 1950-1967: From Dance Hall to the 100 Club, Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate, 2013.

Frith, Simon, Matt Brennan, Martin Cloonan and Emma Webster, The History of Live Music in Britain, Volume 2: 1968-1984: From Hyde Park to the Hacienda, Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2019.

Holt, Fabian and Carsten Wergin (eds.), Musical Performance and the Changing City: Post-industrial Contexts in Europe and the United States, New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.

Inglis, Ian (ed.), Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time, Aldershot & Burlington: Ashgate, 2006.

Mazierska, Ewa, Les Gillon and Tony Rigg (eds.), The Future of Live Music, Bloomsbury (Forthcoming).

McKay, George, The Pop Festival: History, Music, Media, Culture, New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

“Pop music festivals and (cultural) policies” (Special Issue), IASPM@Journal, Vol 9, No 1, 2019.

Robinson, Roxy, Music Festivals and the Politics of Participation, Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.