Urban Music Studies

Scholars Network

03/08/2017
by Alenka Barber-Kersovan
Comments Off on CfP: Marseille ? Naples : deux métropoles musicales transculturelles de Méditerranée

CfP: Marseille ? Naples : deux métropoles musicales transculturelles de Méditerranée

In addition to numerous other similarities, the Mediterranean cities Marseille and Naples offer very lively music scenes with significant parallels (and, of course, differences). Examples of comparable phenomena point to typical forms of popular song (“canzone napoletana”/”chansons deMarseille”), the close amalgamation of music and theatre (“opérette marseillaise”, “sceneggiata napoletana”, “macchietta”) and the “creolized metropolitan sound”. In order to highlight these issues the University of Insbruck and the Université Aix-Marseille are calling for contributions for a conference entitled Marsiglia ? Napoli: due metropoli musicali transculturali del Mediterraneo / Marseille ? Naples : deux métropoles musicales transculturelles de Méditerranée. More…

31/07/2017
by Alenka Barber-Kersovan
Comments Off on Berlin – Symphony of a Metropolis

Berlin – Symphony of a Metropolis

In his documentary film ‘Berlin – Symphony of a Metropolis’ Walther Ruttmann (1887-1944) experiments with the perception of the city in motion in terms of a musical form: The symphony. With its montage technique and the dramaturgical structure this 60 minutes long silent movie is not only the most popular work of the avantgarde artist, but also a prototype of the ‘city symphony film’ as a specific genre.

 

12/07/2017
by Alenka Barber-Kersovan
Comments Off on CfP: Imagine Kingston as a Regenerative City

CfP: Imagine Kingston as a Regenerative City


There are, in Kingston old quarters, a geography of dereliction, social discomfort and crime that rank this city in the top thirty in the world with respect to murder. However, this city is also a global cultural icon, the birthplace of six distinct musical genres.

In order to foster the economical grow of the Jamaican capital, the University of the West Indies in association with the Jamaica Music Museum is calling on artists, educators and scholars from a broad range of disciplines to imagine the towns creative hub in the framework of a major conference on the regeneration of Kingston. More

 

03/07/2017
by Alenka Barber-Kersovan
Comments Off on Busking in Berlin: Between an art of living and the art of surviving

Busking in Berlin: Between an art of living and the art of surviving

Who is busking in Berlin and why? Mark Nowakowski provides a detailed portrait of the street music scene in Berlin and their actors. Besides the role of the artists and the matrix between them, their audience and the city, Mark Nowakowski also analyses the sociocultural dimensions as well as historical transformations of the street music scene in Berlin.

Mark Nowakowski, born in 1978, works as a scientific engineer for sustainable energy at the Federal Environment Agency. The ethnomusicologist graduated in 2004 at the Freien Universität Berlin.

21/06/2017
by R. Kuchar
Comments Off on June is New York Music Month

June is New York Music Month

NYC kicks off the first-ever  (NYMM) – a citywide celebration of New York City’s diverse music ecosystem during the month of June. Music is central to the city’s economy, social fabric, and cultural identity. NYMM celebrates this with programming and resources for musicians and the music industry; co-branded concerts; advertising and social media campaigns; a website with a comprehensive calendar of free and ticketed music events; educational programs; and much more. The month is an initiative of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment in partnership with NY is Music. More

12/06/2017
by R. Kuchar
Comments Off on Music City´s Origin – Hector Berlioz´ Euphonia

Music City´s Origin – Hector Berlioz´ Euphonia

Topos Music City came up in the essay ‚Euphonia or the Musical City‘ by the French romantic composer Hector Berlioz  (1803-1869) first. Published in 1852 in his collection ‚Evenings with the Orchestra‘ Berlioz envisions a future town, situated on the slopes of Harz in Germany, in which the inhabitants devote themselves exclusively to one single activity – making music. The ideas of this aesthetic utopia, promoting music education, acoustic research and the building of monumental music shrines are now closer to realisation than Berlioz could imagine in his wildest dreams. More…

01/06/2017
by R. Kuchar
Comments Off on New Book on Cultural Policy, Urban Music & Migration by Lisa Gaupp: Die exotisierte Stadt. Kulturpolitik und Musikvermittlung im postmigrantischen Prozess.

New Book on Cultural Policy, Urban Music & Migration by Lisa Gaupp: Die exotisierte Stadt. Kulturpolitik und Musikvermittlung im postmigrantischen Prozess.

The book sketches the interaction between music mediation, cultural policies, urban popular music and identityconstruction in today’s complex societies. Likewise, this study reveals how a global transcultural youth culture is emerging and developing under the influence of institutional structures in urban settings. The debates on migration, which have continued to flare up in Germany since the early 1990s, and which are dominated by defensive attitudes regarding what is «one’s own» and other segregating tendencies, show the need for counteracting these tendencies by uncovering the underlying «imagined intercultural identities». The analysis of the «othering» in discourses of multi- or interculturalism within the «dispositive of interculture» and its educational and political objectives demonstrates how one tries to present the «exotic other» as homogenous.
The ethnographic field study analyses how intercultural policies construct and label their target group through ascriptions of otherness, and, in doing so, uncovers which concepts of culture are applied by those responsible for intercultural projects and policies. Furthermore, it displays whether the attributed meanings and identities prove to be right at all.
The results of this analysis demonstrate how a «transcultural» perspective can reveal an alternative point of view in cultural policies. This leads to the conclusion that cultural politics should and need to adapt to the realities of today’s post-migrant social processes. A transcultural post-migrant perspective in cultural politics centers on interactions, crossroads and (contradictory) commonalities, without emphasizing segregating tendencies. Likewise, these features are regarded as advantages within globalized settings and can lead to policies that underline the promotion of post-migrancy as a part of normal life.
Bibliographic Note:
Gaupp, Lisa (2016): Die exotisierte Stadt. Kulturpolitik und Musikvermittlung im postmigrantischen Prozess. Hildesheim: Universitätsverlag Hildesheim/Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag (Center for World Music – Studies in Music ; Band 1).

23/05/2017
by Alenka Barber-Kersovan
Comments Off on UK Live Music Census

UK Live Music Census

The UK’s first ever live music census – a ‘Springwatch’ for live music. The Census covers all genres and takes a broad definition of live music to include events featuring DJs.

A nationwide online survey for musicians, venues, promoters and audiences is open and collecting data until 31 May. The survey should help measuring live music’s cultural and economic value, discover what challenges the industry is facing, and inform policy to help it flourish. More…

05/05/2017
by Alenka Barber-Kersovan
Comments Off on Music Cities Network

Music Cities Network

Music Cities Network is a new public/private network dedicated to improving communication and cooperation, sharing research and knowledge, exploring policy and advocacy, and networking for policy makers, city leaders and all other music city stakeholders. The network is aimed at making cities wealthier, healthier, livable and more international through music.

http://www.musiccitiesnetwork.com/about-mcn https://www.facebook.com/musiccitiesnetwork/

03/04/2017
by R. Kuchar
Comments Off on Music Cities Edited Collection – Call for Chapter Proposals

Music Cities Edited Collection – Call for Chapter Proposals

From the physical spaces in which music activity takes place, to the mythologizing of city-specific music scenes, the city has long played a vital role in the development and sustaining of music scenes. In recent years there has been a concerted effort to cultivate and nurture musical activity as a key driver for urban economic development and for city-specific tourism. Cities around the world are now looking to cultivate and support music activity in a bid to activate new forms of cultural and creative identity. This has occurred off the back of similar creative and cultural cities movements, and works to move beyond the mythologizing of particular cities music scenes in order to legitimise music as a place-specific cultural output which contributes significantly to local identities as well as to local economies. To this end, music is positioned as making a vital contribution to the cultural and economic fabric of a city, and is viewed as a critical way through which both locals and tourists can gauge, and engage with, a city’s cultural and creative identities. In order to foster this, an array of heritage and planning accords, live music regulation, tourism initiatives and even tax exemptions have been put in place, and an array of industry and government developed place-specific reports and activation ‘how-to’ manuals have been developed in order to understand the scope of place-specific music activity and the ways in which it can be cultivated and supported.

With a particular focus on heritage, planning, tourism and regulatory measures, we invite rigorous place-specific case studies exploring, both empirically and conceptually, the ways in which the music cities movement has emerged globally, yet is grounded in a variety of local urban, cultural and political contexts.

Proposals for chapters should consist of a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with author name(s), bio (of no more than 150 words) affiliation, and e-mail address. It is envisage that published chapters will be 6,500 – 7,000 words in length. We have a very enthusiastic academic publisher interested in pursuing this collection with us.

Proposals should be e-mailed to musiccitiesbook@gmail.com by May 15, 2017.

Editors:

Dr. Christina Ballico (Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University)
Dr. Allan Watson (Department of Geography, Loughborough University)

More information: Website

P.S.: For getting some inspiration have a look on our Music City Volume published in 2014.