Category Archives: Conferences

City Speakers at Hidden Musicians Revisited Conference

In 1989 Ruth Finnegan – an anthropologist based at the Open University – published a book called ‘The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town’. Based on several years of ethnographic research in the ‘new town’ of Milton Keynes, the book uncovered a wealth of amateur music-making in a town which had become widely dubbed as a ‘cultural desert’. ‘The Hidden Musicians’ became a landmark publication in the study of music and culture.

On 11th and 12th January 2016, ‘The Hidden Musicians Revisited’ conference was held at the Open University in Milton Keynes. It was organised by City University music alumna Catherine Tackley (now teaching at the OU) and was attended by about 50 people from across the UK and abroad. Keynote papers were presented by Ruth Finnegan herself and Professor Derek Scott (University of Leeds).

City lecturer Laudan Nooshin and completing PhD student and Visiting Lecturer Stephen WIlford both presented papers at the conference, as follows: ‘Hide and Seek: The Internet as an Alternative Public Space for Iran’s ‘Hidden’ Musicians’ and ‘Hidden Musicians in Public Spaces: Algerian Musics and Festivals in Contemporary London’.

This was a fascinating conference in which papers addressed many different aspects of ‘hidden-ness’ in relation to music and musicians.

Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum, 27th November 2015

On Friday 27th November 2015, the Music Department at City University hosted the Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum, a research event run in conjunction with the Music Department at SOAS and the Institute of Musical Research. The forum is convened by Laudan Nooshin and since 2007 has been a twice yearly meeting point for researchers, students and anyone interested in the music and culture of the region.

The forum was attended by about 50 people and speakers included both senior scholars – Professor Owen Wright (SOAS), Professor Rachel Beckles Willson (Royal Holloway) and Dr Ruth Davis (Cambridge) – alongside research students Tamara Turner and Louis Brehony (both King’s College London), Salvatore Morra (Royal Holloway) and Saied Kordmafi (SOAS). It’s an indication of how healthy the field is that there are now so many research students working on the musics of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Topics ranged from trance music in Algeria to the Arab Idol singing contest and new directions in Iranian classical music.

The day ended with a screening of a documentary film, ‘6 Centuries and 6 Years’ (2015, dir: Mojtaba Mirtahmasb) about a project to restore and record a repertoire of compositions attributed to the highly influential Abd al-Qadir Maraghi, a prominent composer, music theorist, author and poet of the 15th century.

http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2015/november/middle-east-and-central-asia-music-forum

Laudan Nooshin Presents Research Seminar at Bath Spa University; and other conference activities …

On Thursday November 12th, Laudan Nooshin visited Bath Spa University to present a research seminar on the music of Iranian pop diva Googoosh (b.1950). The seminar explored Googoosh’s immense popularity, despite not being able to perform between 1979 (after the Iranian Revolution) and 2000 when she left Iran after 21 years of silence, and following which she toured North America, Europe and elsewhere to ecstatic audiences. The seminar sought to understand the power of Googoosh’s music to evoke a level of emotional engagement in her audience quite unlike any other Iranian musician. A recording of the seminar can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/145631933 (password: mparf123)

This seminar followed a series of conference presentations since the summer, some on joint panels with City Music PhD students. In late June, Laudan presented a paper at the London School of Economics at the Annual Conference of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), together with City PhD students Steve Wilford and Sam MacKay. The conference theme was ‘Liberation?’ and the panel was entitled: ‘Perspectives on Music and Liberation in the Middle East and North Africa’. Steve and Sam both talked about aspects of their current PhD research and their papers were entitled ‘Libération? Music, Independence and Postcolonialism in Algeria’ and ‘Freedom and Exile: North African Musical Migration in Marseille’ respectively. The panel also included a paper by Cristina Moreno Almeida (SOAS PhD student) – ‘Echoing the Moroccan ‘(R)Evolution’: Rap and the 2011 MENA Popular Uprisings’. The panel generated a great deal of interesting discussion.

Laudan also presented papers at the Joint Conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology/Société Française d’Ethnomusicologie in Paris in July 2015 and at the Royal Musical Association Annual Conference at the University of Birmingham in September 2015.

Laudan speaking at Bath Spa University, November 2015

Sam MacKay speaking at BRISMES, June 2015

Steve Wilford speaking at BRISMES, June 2015

Laudan Nooshin Presents WOMEX 2015 Professional Excellence Award in Budapest

Laudan Nooshin was in Budapest last week to present the 2015 WOMEX Professional Excellence Award to Iranian music producer Ramin Sadighi. Sadighi set up the Hermes record label in 1999 and has since produced some of the most innovative and boundary-breaking music in Iran. WOMEX is the annual world music industry exposition which this year was held in Budapest from 21st to 25th October and attended by over 2,500 artists, producers, promoters, journalists and others involved in the world music industry.

Laudan chaired a Q&A session with Ramin on 24th October and presented his award at the closing ceremony. Here is an extract from her speech:

“I am deeply honoured and humbled to be presenting the 2015 WOMEX Professional Excellence Award to Mr Ramin Sadighi. I believe that WOMEX has shown great foresight in giving this award to a man who – I think it is no exaggeration to say – has changed the face of music production in Iran, setting new standards, challenging stereotypes and opening new musical spaces.

As someone who has been involved with Iranian music for more than 30 years, I am grateful for this opportunity to publicly thank Ramin – and Hermes, the label that he founded 16 years ago. And, of course, this award is also intended to recognise all of those working in the independent music sector in Iran, and to pay tribute to their amazing resilience and creativity. And, given the overwhelmingly negative media representations of Iran, it’s all the more important to have such moments of recognition.

When I think of Hermes, four words come to mind: Vision. Quality. Integrity. Trust.

Hermes’ work is visionary and boundary-breaking. Above all, it has provided a space for supporting, promoting the work of, and creating an audience for music which crosses boundaries of many kinds, musical and cultural.

Hermes has set new standards of quality for music production in Iran, from the music itself, the presentation of albums, the many concerts at home and abroad – in particular bringing musicians to Iran; and numerous events such as discussion and listening sessions and film screenings. Hermes is much more than a record company – it has created a community around this music.”

http://www.hermesrecords.com/en/

City Hosts Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum

On Friday 22^nd May 2015, the Music Department hosted the Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum. This forum has been running twice a year since 2007 under the auspices of the Institute of Musical Research, but has recently moved its base to City. The Forum provides a meeting point for students, researchers and others interested in the musics and culture of the Middle East and Central Asia.

The day was a great success with about 70 people in attendance and a lively atmosphere with plenty of positive feedback and stimulating discussion after papers and in between in lunch and coffee breaks. There were 10 speakers altogether, including both research students and academics from across the UK and abroad. Highlights of the day included presentations by two City PhD students, Steve Wilford and Sam Mackay, whose papers were entitled: ‘Between Thames and Sahara: Representations of Algerian Music in Contemporary London’ and ‘A Shared History? North African Musical Heritage and the Public Sphere in Contemporary Marseille’. Other papers covered such diverse topics as female musicians in Afghanistan and Kuwaiti ṣaut music.

The main conference was followed by a book launch for Laudan Nooshin’s recently published Iranian Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity (2015, Ashgate Press) and an evening concert which opened the City Summer Sounds Music Festival: ‘Sounds of the Bosphorous Today’ with sisters Neva and Yelda Özgen from Istanbul playing traditional and contemporary pieces on kemençe (bowed fiddle) and ‘cello.

Abstracts and biographies of speakers can be downloaded here: http://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/266640/Abstracts-and-biographies-for-the-Middle-East-and-Central-Asia-Music-Forum,-Friday-22nd-May-2015,-City-University-London.pdf

More details on the concert: http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2015/may/sounds-of-the-bosphorus-today

More details on Laudan’s book: http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&pageSubject=310&title_id=3314&edition_id=3393

More details on the day: http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2015/may/middle-east-and-central-asia-music-forum

Ahmad AlSalhi (Royal Holloway University of London) talking about the history of ṣaut music in Kuwait

Veronica Doubleday (Visiting Fellow, Goldsmiths University of London) talking about female musicians in Afghanistan

Current and former City students enjoying the tea break

Book launch for Laudan Nooshin’s new book

Laudan Nooshin Presents Keynote Paper in Norway

On 10^th June 2015, Laudan Nooshin presented an invited keynote paper at a conference in Norway organised by the Grieg Research School in Interdisciplinary Music Studies and held on the beautiful island of Stord. The conference was hosted jointly with the Norwegian Research School in Teacher Education and the theme was ‘The Art and Science of Improvisation’. Laudan’s keynote, which was entitled ‘Re-Imagining Musical Difference: Creative Process, Alterity and “Improvisation” in Iranian Music from Classical to Jazz’, explored the ways in which the concept of ‘improvisation’ has come to be understood, constructed and imagined by musicians in Iran over the past half century or so.

There were about 150 delegates at the conference, including a number of PhD music students from the UK. Other keynote speakers included Colin Lee, Professor of Music Therapy at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, who completed his PhD in Music Therapy at City University London in 1992.

The Grieg Research School is a collaboration between the University of Bergen, Bergen University College, Stord/Haugesund University College, Volda University College and the University of Stavanger. It hosts two conferences each year which bring together PhD students in a range of music disciplines, including music education, ethnomusicology, music therapy, musicology, performance and composition. Students have an opportunity to get feedback on their work and each conference includes a number of invited keynote speakers.

http://prosjektsider.hsh.no/r15/

http://prosjektsider.hsh.no/r15/2014/12/17/dr-laudan-nooshin/

Laudan Nooshin presents Keynote

Conference Venue

View from the boat …

City Students and Staff at the Royal Musical Association Annual Research Students’ Conference

This year’s RMA Research Students’ Conference was held in the Music Department at the University of Bristol from Thursday 8th to Saturday 10th January 2015 and there was a good representation of City students and staff presenting papers.

DMA student Annie Yim presented her practice-based research on ‘Regaining a Lost Performing Tradition: The Schumann Circle and the Young Brahms’s Piano Trio Op. 8a’, including live demonstration at the piano. Another pianist and DMA student, Sasha Karpeyev, gave a paper on the Edna Iles’ ‘Medtner Collection’ at the British Library, and talked about the value of this collection and its implications for Medtner performance practice.

Two PhD students also presented papers: in ‘”Yellow Bird” and Pan: Caribbean Musical Migrations’, Rachel Hayward gave a summary of her research plotting the migration routes of the ‘Choucoune’ song family from 1957 to the present day; and Sam MacKay presented a paper entitled ‘A Shared history? North African Musical Heritage and the Public Sphere in Contemporary Marseille’.

As well as the research students, Laudan Nooshin was at the conference in her new capacity as RMA Council member. She participated in a roundtable panel on the topic of ‘Perspectives on Analysing Music and Sound’ along with other panel members: Rachel Beckles Willson (Royal Holloway), Emma Hornby (University of Bristol), Bettina Varwig (Kings College, London) and Warwick Edwards (University of Glasgow).

All of the presentations were well received and generated enthusiastic comments and questions from the audience.

Further information on the Royal Musical Association and the conference:

http://www.rma.ac.uk

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/gradschool/pg-activity/conferences/rma

Ethnomusicology and the City Conference

On Saturday November 29th, the Music Department at City University London hosted the 2014 one-day conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, on the theme of ‘Ethnomusicology and the City’. The event was convened by Stephen Cottrell and Laudan Nooshin, and was attended by about 80 people from the UK and abroad.

The first morning session comprised papers on Berlin, Mexico City and Paris, presented by Philip Alexander (SOAS), Andrew Green (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Griffith Rollerson (University College Cork). This was followed (after the coffee break) by two papers on Smyrna and Birmingham, both covering issues related to Greek and Greek-Cypriot culture and memory of place, and presented by Eleni Kallimopoulou (University of Macedonia, Greece) and Michalis Poupazis (University College Cork).

The afternoon began with three presentations of a more applied nature: the first mapping Brazilian diasporic music in Madrid (Gabril Hoskin, Queen’s University Belfast); the second discussing research on online communities and distribution of music using Soundcloud (Byron Dueck, Open University, Daniel Allington, Open University and Anna Jordanous, University of Kent); and the third discussing the recording of Limerick’s soundscapes (Tony Langlois, University of Limerick and Aileen Dillane, University of Limerick). This was followed by a joint session on diasporic music of Tamils and Algerians in London (Steve Wilford, City University London and Jasmine Hornabrook, Goldsmiths College, University of London).

The day concluded with a roundtable session with guest speakers Richard Elliott (University of Sussex), John Drever (Goldsmiths College, University of London) and Byron Dueck (Open University), summarising the day’s events and exploring what ethnomusicology can bring to the study of music in the city.

All in all, the conference was a great way for us as students to see first-hand what sort of research, theories and discussion are happening currently within the ethnomusicology community, to meet the doers and shakers within it, and begin to forge ties and bonds with those of similar interests.

Peter Huston
MA Ethnomusicology

Marie Saunders presents at ‘Understanding Scotland Musically’ conference

Marie Saunders, who is working towards her PhD in Ethnomusicology at City, recently presented a paper at the Understanding Scotland Musically Conference, sponsored by the AHRC and held at Newcastle University, 20-21 October 2014. The title of her paper was ‘Understanding Scotland differently: intergenerational musical reception amongst the London-Scottish diaspora’. Her paper was prompted by reflections on evidence from primary research she carried out in London among two different age groups drawn from members of London’s Scottish diaspora. The data from her current ethnographic research in progress is beginning to suggest a definite shift in perceptions of what Scottish music is. Responses about Scottish music differed from those gathered in her earlier research carried out in 2010. Three patterns are beginning to emerge: little connection with bagpipe music, the prominent place of Indie bands indicating new identity markers for Scottish music and the importance of audience participation, ‘musicking’(Small,C.,1998), with reference to Indie Concerts, ceilidh bands and the Proclaimers. It remains to be seen whether these patterns will be maintained or challenged as the quota of interviews moves toward completion in 2015.

Laudan Nooshin presents invited paper at ‘Classical Music, Critical Challenges’ conference

On Friday 17th October 2014, Laudan Nooshin was invited to present a paper at the conference ‘Classical Music, Critical Challenges’, held at King’s College London. The paper was entitled ‘Classical Music and Its Others: The View from Iran’, and explored one of the central themes of the conference – how classical music’s hegemonic status is produced and maintained – focused on the reception of western classical music in Iran. The paper examined the ways in which the discourses around western classical music in Iran have served to establish and maintain the music’s prestige and authority. Laudan traced the arrival of western classical music in Iran in the mid-19th century, through its later mobilisation as a symbol of modernity in the 1930s, and more recently how the music has come to be understood as a form of ‘universal’ expression which transcends geographical and cultural boundaries.

The conference, which was attended by about 80 people, was organised by Anna Bull (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Christina Scharff (King’s College London) and was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Goldsmiths, University of London.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/cmci/eventrecords/2014/classical-music-critical-challenges.aspx

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/cmci/eventrecords/2014/programme-october17.pdf

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