Bass, Grain, Resonance: Vibrational Studies of Electronic Dance Music

Colloquium Musicology
Dr. L.M. Garcia

Friday 11 December, 14:00-15:30
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

Abstract: 
This lecture sets out to explore the tactilization of sound in electronic dance music as well as significance of vibration and resonance in emic understandings of sonic affect. Sonic tactility offers an important sensory-affective bridge between touch, sonic experience, and an expansive sense of connection in dancing crowds. Electronic dance music events tend to engender spaces of heightened tactility and embodied intimacy, and so it no surprise that their musical aesthetics also highlight tactility. In track-titles, lyrics, and other text-based media surrounding this genre, “feeling” is often deployed in a polyvalent manner, highlighting the conceptual overlap between emotion, affective knowing, perception, and touch. This bleed between modes of feeling extends into the sound of recordings themselves, which use vibration to engage with tactile, haptic, and kinaesthetic senses in addition to hearing. 

This analysis of sonic tactility focuses on “house” and “techno” styles of electronic music, especially the “minimal” continuum of sub-styles that were in ascendancy during the first decade of the twenty-first century. These styles invoke tactility through a range of modalities, including percussive bass “beats” and highly "granular" sonic texture (à la P. Schaeffer). This sonic tactility leads to a further examination of the role of vibration and resonance in popular electronic music scenes. Drawing from ethnographic interviews as well as recent "EDMC" research, this lecture will show how emic notions of "vibe" and "sync" provide compelling accounts of sonic affect through phenomena such as sympathetic resonance, entrainment, and attunement.

Vitry in the Rhineland? A provisional report, and some methodological considerations

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
prof. dr. Karl Kügle

19 November, 15:30-17:00
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

The ontological status of Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361) escapes easy classification even more than that of his contemporary, ‘secretary-poet-musician’ (Leach 2011) Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377). Vitry personally might have seen himself first and foremost as a cleric, pursuing a career that led him from studies at Paris University into service to two noble houses within the extended French royal family (Bourbon and Valois), culminating in his appointment as bishop of Meaux (1351-61). Having fulfilled relatively straightforward functions for his aristocratic patrons at first, including legal counsel and notary, he acquired important posts within the Valois administration following Philip of Valois’s accession to the French throne (1328), at the same time serving as royal propagandist, diplomat, and tutor to Philip’s children. Hailing (probably) from Artois, his own family included several brothers also active in French politics. He befriended the likes of Petrarch and of Pierre Roger, archbishop of Rouen, later Pope Clement VI (1342-52), possibly one of Philippe’s student friends. He was a scholar of music, theology, and astronomy, an early humanist, a poet working in Latin and Old French, a singer, and – last but not least - a composer. His reputation extended far beyond France into England, Italy, Central Europe and Cyprus, and endured well into the fifteenth century. His fame was revived by musicologists who see him as one of the key instigators of the so-called ‘ars nova’.

Against such a background (‘data-poor’ but exceptionally rich in hermeneutic possibilities), any additional material coming to light acquires unusual importance. In my paper, I shall review the state of Vitry research today, then introduce a new source I discovered recently in the Middle Rhine region of Germany. I conclude with some methodological considerations: How to grasp the complexities of a past where even the word for music (musica) means something different from what it means to us?

MA Graduation Conference Friday 23 October

On Friday 23 October, the recent graduates from the MA Musicology UvA will present their research for their fellow students, family, friends, and anyone interested. After the presentations, students will receive the certificate for the MA Musicology. The location is room 1.01A at the University Theater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, Amsterdam.

Full program:

9:45-10:15 Meagan Hughes  -  Music and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland
10:15-10:45 Fabian Westzaan  -  Volharding in de Progressieve Muziekpraktijk. Over het activisme van Orkest de Volharding van 1972 tot 1983

10:45-11:00 break

11:00-11:30 Belle Edelman - Musical Recall: A Study on Transmission
11:30-12:00 Tim Ruijgrok - Dissonant Views on Consonance (presentation in Dutch)

12:00-13:30 break

13:30-14:00 Geraldine van Gelder  -  Lamentaties van Palestrina en Lasso
14:00-14:30 Rebecca Erickson - A Filmic Sound Atlas

14:30-14:45 break

14:45-15:15 Aart Appelhof  - Eduard Hanslick en programmatische muziek
15:15-15:45 Laura Jonker  -  Bang on a Can-ism. Postminimalism, totalism and the music by Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe (presentation in Dutch)

15:45-16:00 break

16:00-16:30 Marloes Schuurman - Gender, muziek en islam. Vier case studies over Marokkaanse zangeressen in Nederland
16:30-17:00 Jurre Thuijs - Pitch Anticipation: a study of glide tone perception

Music notation as technology and material culture in the performances of the ICP Orchestra

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Floris Schuiling

15 October, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

This talk presents some of the results of an ethnographic study of Amsterdam-based improvising collective the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, taking their notated repertoire as inspiration for formulating a new approach to music notation after the performative turn in music scholarship. The ICP, founded in 1967 by Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink and Willem Breuker and still performing, is one of the longest consistently performing groups in improvised music. Influenced by free jazz, experimental music and performance art, founding member Mengelberg composed a diverse repertoire of pieces that construct different possibilities for improvisation and creative interaction in performance.

In such an improvised context, it seems pointless to approach these pieces as ‘representations’ of the music they play. Rather than such a binary relation between text and performance, I draw on the work of anthropologist Alfred Gell (1992, 1998) to describe them as technologies, mediating social and creative agency of performers in a wider network of mediating relations between musicians and their instruments. While a critical attitude to the centrality of the work in musicology has been vital for the performative turn, this formulation of the role of notation in a model of distributed creativity is intended to develop a positive understanding of notation and its role in the construction of musical cultures and socialities.

The Perception and Computation of Music Similarity in Electronic Dance Music

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Dr Aline Honingh (researcher at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, UvA)

25 June, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

"I just love this song, do you know other songs like this?" "What do you mean? Songs with a similar rhythm, or being similar otherwise?"

When is a piece of music similar to another piece of music? And do people agree on this? These are important questions in research on music similarity. Music similarity is a popular topic in the field of computational musicology, but still not well understood.

Since music can be studied by looking at different aspects like melody, rhythm and timbre, music similarity might be studied by studying so-called `sub-similarities’ like rhythm similarity and timbre similarity. In this presentation we focus on rhythm and timbre similarity in the context of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Since rhythm and timbre are the two most important musical dimensions in EDM, one can wonder whether, by modeling rhythm and timbre similarity, the concept of general music similarity can be modeled from this as well. In addition to these models, we will look at an experiment in which similarity scores were given by listeners. With these scores, the models can be evaluated, and we can learn more about how people rate (rhythm/timbre) similarity.

In a collaboration with company Elephantcandy, an app based on timbre and rhythm similarity was developed, and will be presented at the colloquium.

The Ever-Present Noise of Sound: On the Inevitability and Necessity of Noise in Recorded Sound and Music

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Melle Kromhout (PhD candidate at ASCA)

21 mei, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

In my PhD-project on the role of noise in recorded sound and music, I aim to provide an alternative to existing views on noise that continue to consider it in terms of its transgressive or subversive potential as the sonic “other.” Through a methodological approach largely influenced by media archaeology or, more broadly, so-called German Media Theory, I develop a theoretical framework that enables a thorough revaluation of the fundamental importance of noise for assessing the meaning of music and sound in the media age.

In this talk I will first provide a general overview of the main questions and aims of my ongoing research. Secondly, I will present two case studies of specific sound technologies that provided the foundation for my larger thesis: an analysis of noise reduction technologies in analogue recording practices makes the case for the inevitability of noise; next, the analysis of the practice of “dithering” in digital sound processing shows how noise can even be considered necessary. I will close my presentation with some preliminary thoughts on the further development of the project.

Staging and Negating Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron: Representing a Representation of the Unrepresentable

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap 
Dr. Mark Berry (Royal Holloway, University of London) 

16 april, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

In this lecture, I shall look at perhaps the most theological of all operas, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, with particular reference to its dramatic questioning of the very possibility of artistic, and specifically musical, representation. Schoenberg’s God is unimaginable in the very real sense of it being impossible to make Him into an image. Were the Israelites to succeed in seeing Him, He would no longer be their God. Schoenberg’s conversion to Lutheranism is as important here as his subsequent re-conversion to Judaism. The great Protestant and specifically Lutheran controversy over the Second Commandment, involving Luther’s claim that it applied only to pagans, not to Christians, and its subsequent ejection from the list of ten, its be of importance here. Reformation controversy over iconoclasm fed into the classical German concept of self-cultivation or Bildung, the very word incorporating Bild, or ‘image’. Where, however, does that leave the possibility of musico-dramatic expression?

How, moreover, does such extreme difficulty with respect to the work ‘itself’ translate into staging? Schoenberg’s own stage directions are notoriously unrealisable. Erwin Stein reported, apparently without irony, from the 1957 premiere: ‘In Zurich there was not enough space for displaying the processions of camels, wagons and asses which are supposed to bring offerings to the idol. These tasks as well as the slaughter of cattle and the roasting of meat, which are part of the offerings, will tax the resources of any opera house.’ That, of course, is a practical difficulty, but what of more theoretical concerns, especially in the light of debates concerning Werktreue and Regietheater? Consideration of some productions of Moses und Aron will ask what they have to tell us about representation and its impossibility, and likewise what the work’s confrontation with representation has to tell us about the possibilities, and otherwise, of staging.

“Eine dürftige Geschichte”; Arminius and the Failure of German Liberation Opera (1815-1848)

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Kasper van Kooten

12 maart, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

Abstract:

This lecture traces the little-known history of German-language operas based on the legendary German warrior Arminius that were composed in the years between 1815 and 1848. Considering the symbolic power of Arminius as a national liberation hero and his omnipresence in nearly all realms of German nineteenth-century culture, his apparent absence on the operatic stage is striking. This absence is even more remarkable when we take into account that liberation heroes were standard fare of many “national” operas elsewhere in Europe. But surprisingly, a closer look at historical sources reveals that during the nineteenth century, there were in fact quite some operas written about Arminius’s legendary battle, which were, however, all relatively unsuccessful or soon sunk into oblivion. Evidently there was something with this story and its operatic realizations that did not fit the mold of German opera or did not meet the expectations of German opera audiences. By formulating an answer to the question why Arminius did not conquer the early nineteenth-century German opera stage, I hope to provide a more profound insight into the nature and vicissitudes of German national opera and its discourse.

Thea Derks presenteert haar biografie Reinbert de Leeuw, mens of melodie

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Thea Derks

19 februari, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

In 2014 verscheen de biografie Reinbert de Leeuw, mens of melodie, waarin muziekpublicist Thea Derks het muziekspoor volgt van pianist, componist, dirigent en bestuurder Reinbert de Leeuw. Deze heeft veel betekend voor het Nederlandse muziekleven en stond mede aan de basis van de internationaal vermaarde ensemblecultuur. Derks zal haar lezing illustreren met muziekvoorbeelden. 

Reinbert de Leeuw studeerde twee jaar Nederlands aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam alvorens hij zich in 1958 inschreef voor een studie piano aan het Muzieklyceum aldaar. Vanaf 1962 volgde hij tevens compositieonderricht bij de modernist Kees van Baaren aan het Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag. Daar raakte hij bevriend met Louis Andriessen, Mischa Mengelberg, Peter Schat en Jan van Vlijmen, met wie hij het Nederlandse muziekleven danig zou opschudden, bijvoorbeeld met de controversiële opera Reconstructie in 1969. 

Als bestuurder streed De Leeuw met succes voor financiële ondersteuning van componisten en voor structurele subsidiëring van gespecialiseerde ensembles. Hij zette als pianist de vroege werken van Erik Satie en de late muziek van Franz Liszt op de kaart en brak als programmeur een lans voor twaalftoonsmuziek en tegendraadse componisten als Charles Ives en György Ligeti.

Min of meer uit noodzaak gaat hij ook dirigeren en in 1974 wordt hij door studenten gevraagd hen te coachen voor een uitvoering van Schönbergs Pierrot lunaire. Hieruit ontstaat het Schönberg Ensemble, dat internationaal een grote reputatie opbouwt, mede dankzij de intensieve samenwerking met levende grootheden als Olivier Messiaen, Galina Oestvolskaja, Mauricio Kagel en Sofia Goebaidoelina. 

De biografie Reinbert de Leeuw, mens of melodie kreeg lovende kritieken en werd omschreven als een ‘standaardwerk voor de geschiedschrijving van de Nederlandse ensemblecultuur’. 

Na afloop van de lezing is er gelegenheid vragen te stellen en de biografie te laten signeren.

Richard Taruskin (15-18 december)

Van 15 tot 18 december zal prof. dr Richard Taruskin (University of California, Berkeley) deelnemen aan een serie lezingen en debatten in Amsterdam en Utrecht, georganiseerd in een samenwerking tussen de opleidingen Muziekwetenschap aan de Universiteit Utrecht en de Universiteit van Amsterdam, het Conservatorium van Amsterdam en het Orgelpark.

Op 15 december zal prof. dr Taruskin om 16:00 een lezing geven in het Universiteitstheater (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16), zaal 3.01, getiteld:

Resisting the Rite

Everyone knows about the hostile audience reaction to the first performance of Le sacre du printemps, but resistance to the work and its original import has been constant over the course of the century since then, affecting its subject, its interpretation, and its performance practice. The chief resisters were Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Roerich, the ballet’s creators, and as a result of their resistance the meaning of the work and its cultural significance has been utterly transformed.

De lezing duurt ca. 45 minuten, gevolgd door 30 minuten discussie en een receptie.

Op 16 december volgt er om 14:30 een openbaar interview en discussie getiteld “Catching Up with Richard Taruskin” aan het Conservatorium van Amsterdam (Oosterdokskade 151) over historische uitvoeringspraktijk, volkselementen in hedendaagse muziek, gevolgd door een uitvoering van de Sacre du Printemps voor quatre-mains piano. Op 17 december is er om 15:00 in het Orgelpark (Gerard Brandstraat 26, Amsterdam) een paneldiscussie onder leiding van prof. dr. Hans Fidom over improvisatie en de uitvoeringspraktijk van nieuwe muziek met bijdragen van organist Willem Tanke en pianist Ralph van Raat. Tot slot geeft prof. Taruskin op 18 december om 16:15 een colloquium aan de Universiteit Utrecht, in de Sweelinckzaal van Drift 21, getiteld “Liszt and Bad Taste”. Studenten en medewerkers van de Universiteit van Amsterdam zijn van harte uitgenodigd voor alle bovenstaande evenementen. Masterstudenten en promovendi kunnen deze lezingen ook volgen in het kader van een masterclass van 2 ECTS bij het Huizinga Instituut, voor meer informatie en registratie zie Masterclass Richard Taruskin. 

Richard Taruskin is hoogleraar Muziekwetenschap aan de Universiteit van California, Berkeley, en is een van de meest toonaangevende en spraakmakende muziekwetenschappers van de afgelopen decennia. Hij is de auteur van de imposante Oxford History of Western Music (2005) en heeft vele invloedrijke publicaties over Russische muziek, nationalisme, modernisme en muzikale uitvoeringspraktijk op zijn naam staan, waaronder Text and Act (1995), Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions (1996) en Defining Russia Musically (1997). Met zijn regelmatige bijdragen in onder andere de New York Times en New Republic is hij bovendien een prominente stem in het publieke debat over klassieke muziek.

Tenganan Pegringsingan: Between Mirror and Make Up

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap 
Citra Aryandari 

November 13, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

Tenganan Pegringsingan is a desa adat (village of custom) located in the east of the Indonesian island Bali. Myth has it that the land of Tenganan Pegringsingan was bestowed by Dewa Indra (deities) to Wong Paneges (people) for their loyalty and intelligence. Records dating back to the 11th century note that these ancestors of the Tenganan people tended the village, its lands and natural resources with great care, securing continuity of life not only for themselves, but also for their descendants. Indeed, today, Tenganan’s situation is not significantly different from the one described in the legend.

However, since the tourist industry hit Bali in the 1960s, the Tenganan people have earned their living not only from the inherited natural resources, but also from the tourists from outside Tenganan. This paper, based on extensive fieldwork in Tenganan Pegrinsingan, explores the impact of this on the way in which the Tenganan people carry out their rituals, notably Usaba Sambah, the biggest ritual that lasts for a month, and Mekare-kare, or pandan war. Tenganan people are not particularly interested in the ideology or history behind their ceremonies. For them, the most important thing is that the ceremony is done. Still, for the tourists and other entertainment purposes, they ‘traditionalize’ themselves and beautify their rituals through excessive jewellery, thick make-up and theatricality, with the intention to impress the tourists and make them believe that Tenganan is a village of rich people passionate to preserve their tradition. By focusing on the present-day practice of rituals, the paper aims to provide insight into changes of Tenganan society at large.

MA Graduate Conference 2014

Friday 24 October, 14:00-17:00
Oudemanhuispoort, room F 0.02

Programme:

14:00-14:30 Pieter van Vliet
14:30-15:00 Anneke van Woerden
15:00-15:15 Tom Wolfs
15:15-15:30 Break
15:30-16:00 Sybren Woudstra
16:00-16:30 Mira Withers
16:30-17:00 Erik Spronk

Abstracts

Pieter van Vliet
Everything is coming together: the interrelationship between repetitiveness, modern (recording) technology and music in 21st-century electronic dance music

This thesis focuses on the interrelation between repetitiveness, (recording) technology and the practice of music by closely looking at the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) Ableton Live 9. Live, as it is often called, is the most common software to produce electronic dance music. Ableton’s repetitive nature is extraordinary suitable for producing electronic dance music and offers the possibilities of producers performing their produced music in a live situation: the software ‘blends’ two separate spheres – the sphere of the music-producer and the sphere of the DJ – and gives the opportunity for computers to vividly participate in the live performance of music.

During the presentation certain aspects of the thesis will be further examined. First of all we’ll discuss the concept of electronic dance music (further referred to as EDM), recording technology and repetitiveness: the main subjects of this thesis. We will discuss the historical position of Ableton Live within the history of audio recording and technological/compositional innovations during the 20th century. Secondly we’ll have a closer look upon Ableton Live’s position within electronic dance music and how it shapes the musical practice of live-performance in the 21st century. We will do this by closely examining live performances of producers Pantha du Prince and Nicolas Jaar.

The first case, Pantha Du Prince’s performance of Elements of Light, will give us more insight in how technology offers the producer the opportunity to participate in a live performance as a vivid, improvisational musician, bringing the possibilities of a studio to the stage. Most important is the relationship between the DAW and the ‘conventional’ instruments during the performance.

The second case, focusing on Nicolas Jaar’s stance towards electronic music’s aesthetics, will relate to the problem of authenticity within EDM. Jaar, probably unintentionally, shows how the ‘upcoming new practice’ (meaning: the blurring of DJ and producer and the possibilities of live performance of electronic dance music) gave rise to a demarcation between the ‘honest authentic’ and the ‘dishonest inauthentic’ music.


Anneke van Woerden
Degrees of sampling sound: 3 case studies of Brazilian music

My master thesis, titled “Sampling Sound: How (Some) Brazilian Music Travels”, focuses on the question how sampling contributes to the travelling of Brazilian sounds. Through the focus on the concept of “sound” and the practice of “sampling sound”, I aim to look at what happens specifically on a musical level when sounds travel from one musical context into another.

In this presentation I want to demonstrate different degrees of sampling sound, using three different musical case studies. First of all, I will shortly illustrate the practice of sampling employed within the genre of hip-hop, tracing the sample of “Saudade Vem Correndo” by Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa into “Runnin’”, a song by hip-hop formation the Pharcyde. Subsequently, I will zoom in on the practice of “sampling sound” and illustrate different degrees of sampling sound through two additional case studies, comparing music of Herbie Hancock to João Donato and Ivan Lins.

In order to explain why and how the music from these case studies show striking audible similarities, I use the framework of “memetics of music” by Steven Jan (Jan 2000, 2007). Taking from him the idea about the importance of separate musical parameters such as pitch and rhythm, I argue that the more, and the more accurate all present parameters are replicated, the closer a musical reference comes to the practice of sampling a sound.  Additionally, not only the sound within the sample, but also the way the sample is placed in its musical context is important. Thus, to truly sample a sound, not only all parameters should be replicated, but their importance and sonic influence should extend beyond their replicated context, matching the overall sound.


Tom Wolfs
Seeing Is Believing: The effect of musicians’ body movements on the valuation of a musical performance 

(Graduation ceremony, but without a presentation of the research.)


Sybren Woudstra
On Three

An important aspect of popular music is metre. The bar, as the underlying metrical concept, can indicate several different measure types. The two that I opposed are the binary and the ternary measure type. I did this to investigate the difference in musical meaning between quadruple and triple metre, because triple metre is, for some reason, much more scarce than quadruple metre. How do three and four relate to each other? And what can be expressed by deliberately choosing one or the other as the basis of musical rhythmical structure? Through interviews with several composers I tried to formulate answers to these questions.

Mira Withers
Possibilian theory of music: a rhizomatic approach to music as consciousness

“Music is perhaps the art presenting most philosophical puzzles”[1], “Is not music as much involved with what is not music as speech is with what is not speech?”[2], “We […] need to exercise ourselves in understanding music rather than robotically theorising it.”[3] We know a lot about music. But what harnesses our imagination is what we don’t know. Exploring the space of an unknown territory is where our questions and problem-posing take shape, actualizing their potential to become new hypotheses, new theories.

Possibilian theory of music is an assemblage of philosophical concepts, scientific ideas and music(ologic)al intuitions employed by a ‘what if’: it constructs a hypothesis of music as consciousness. The premise is to differentiate between ‘music’ created by and bound to our human umwelt, constrained by anatomy, perceptual capacity and culture, and ‘music’ that is a conscious thing on its own, with content, rules and evolution, hence the concept musika is introduced. The paper examines possible windows of understanding through which we could consider the (relative) independence of musika from the single mind, the distinction between musika and music and the basis of their relationship, the working mechanisms of an entity such as musika, its (free) will. In my talk I will focus on a couple of topics, namely Popper’s World3 object’s capacities and Deleuze’s topological map.

[1] Kania, Andrew, "The Philosophy of Music", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/music/ 
[2] Seeger, Charles (1977). Toward a Unitary Field Theory for Musicology. In Studies in Musicology 1935-1975 (pp. 102-137). University of California Press. 
[3] Abels, Birgit (2014, January 24) Cultural Musicology? Paper presented at the Conference on Cultural Musicology at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.


Erik Spronk
Migrerende muziek (presentation in Dutch)

Muziek beweegt. Niet alleen beroert het mensen wanneer die naar muziek luisteren, maar muziek verplaatst zich ook in tijd en ruimte, zowel in actieve als in passieve zin: mensen nemen muziek mee op hun reizen over de wereld en via virtuele en imaginaire werelden kan muziek ook steeds sneller nieuw publiek bereiken. In de etnomusicologie is dit dynamische en ruimtelijke aspect tot op heden onderbelicht gebleven; de norm was om muziek “in de culturele context” te bestuderen en te analyseren. Diverse voorbeelden van kruisbestuivingen in de muziek tonen inmiddels aan dat deze visie op niet-westerse muziek niet altijd opgaat. Daarom moet de vraag worden gesteld hoe (niet-westerse) muziek dan wel kan worden bestudeerd, op een manier waarbij het bewegende aspect van muziek wordt meegenomen en dit tevens praktisch uitvoerbaar is. Om dit te kunnen bereiken zullen er ideeën die gerelateerd zijn aan het bewegen van culturen en muziek en afkomstig zijn van andere vakgebieden binnen de geesteswetenschappen worden geïntroduceerd en toegepast op de muziekwetenschap, waarbij er ook oog is voor de ontwikkelingen in de musicologie zelf. Deze theorie zal worden geïllustreerd aan de hand van enkele voorbeelden van hybride en dynamische muziekvormen die zich over de wereld bevinden, waarvoor een literatuurstudie zal worden uitgevoerd. Op deze wijze zal worden getracht een bijdrage te leveren aan de ontwikkeling van de culturele muziekwetenschap als vakgebied binnen de musicologie.

Voicing, Listening, and Public Feeling: from fado to canção de protesto in Lisbon, Portugal

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap

Lila Ellen Gray

October 16, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

For many participants in Lisbon’s fado worlds, the term fadista refers to both one who sings and one who knows how to listen; through listening one enters into the affective, poetic, and performative sound world of fado, mind, body and soul. In Lisbon’s fado scenes, speech and song, performances of the everyday (like telling a story), heightened performances (like getting up to sing a fado during an amateur fado session), and mediatized performances, interanimate one another. Listening can also be considered as a type of performance signaled on its own continuum of markedness, by its own rituals and repetitions.  This continuum of the voice sounding and its relationship to forms of public listening and public feeling as manifest in the Portuguese musical genres of fado and canção de protesto (or protest song), forms the focus of this presentation.  The first part of the presentation draws on ethnographic research I conducted on fado performance and reception in Lisbon, Portugal during the first decade of the 2000s, some of which is the basis for my book, Fado Resounding: Affective Politics and Urban Life (Duke University Press, 2013). This research spanned diverse and overlapping Lisbon sites and social worlds (museums and archives, professional fado venues, tourist restaurants and small amateur bars, fans of the late fado diva Amália Rodrigues) but it is primarily grounded in ethnographic work on amateur fado practice and sociality. The final section of the talk draws on a portion of my current research, which examines the musical and cultural responses to the financial crisis in Portugal, focusing on a re-emergent register of voicing (and participatory listening) through the highly politicized genre of canção de protesto. I position this in relation to the stereotypical complaint register of the fado voice, historicizing these registers, while asking questions about their labors and viabilities in the present.

A Tool of Remembrance: The Shofar in Modern Music, Literature and Art

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Kees van Hage

September 25, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

The shofar or ram’s horn, like the menorah and the Star of David, is a central symbol of Judaism. In the Hebrew Bible, it is the most mentioned instrument: it announces the revelation of the Ten Commandments, it calls for religious rituals, it is heard in the exhortations of prophets and it gives the signal for battle. In the Bible, however, the shofar is only rarely a musical instrument. In the prayer books for Rosh Ha-Shanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the shofar produces a wordless continuation of prayer, and therefore is considered a ritual instrument instead of a musical instrument.

By the end of the 19th century, writers, composers and artists changed their way of looking at the shofar and thanks to their work, the venerable ram’s horn was given a second youth; it made an artistic turn to music, literature and art, revealing its unexpected artistic abilities, without forgetting its religious past.

A Tool of Remembrance, the first scholarly monograph on the shofar, explores the use and meanings of the shofar as a traditional religious symbol in the new, secular context of modern music, literature and art, where the instrument is no longer subject to restrictions of place (the synagogue), time (the liturgical year) and authority (halakhah), and where it is directed to general, not exclusively Jewish audiences of listeners, readers or viewers, who are not aroused to action or repentance, but invited to experience the artists’ personal interpretations of Jewish traditions.

Jazz Beyond Borders congres, 4-7 september

4-7 September vindt het driedaagse Jazz Beyond Borders congres op het conservatorium van Amsterdam; de derde in een serie grootschalige internationale jazz-congressen georganiseerd door de Rhythm Changes onderzoeksgroep, met keynotes van Steven Feld (Jazz cosmopolitanism in Accra) en John Gennari (Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and its Critics) en maar liefst 95 presentaties.

Voor meer informatie over het programma en registratie, zie www.rhythmchanges.net.

Balinese Gamelan Semar Pagulingan speelklaar in Universiteitstheater

Vanaf 1 september 2014 is de Opleiding Muziekwetenschap van de Universiteit van Amsterdam de trotse gebruiker van een zeldzame zeventoons Gamelan Semar Pagulingan van het Indonesische eiland Bali. De gamelan is onlangs opgesteld in de kelder van het Universiteitstheater aan de Nieuwe Doelenstraat met uitzicht op de Amstel. 

De gamelan zal ingezet worden voor reguliere onderwijsactiviteiten van de Opleiding Muziekwetenschap en voor workshops. Balinese gamelans zijn in tegenstelling tot Javaanse gamelans nauwelijks tot niet aan Europese instellingen voor hoger muziekonderwijs te vinden. De opleiding Muziekwetenschap zal zich dus sterk maken voor de mogelijkheid om wetenschappers, musici en studenten van Balinese muziek uit andere delen van de wereld toegang te geven tot de gamelan. De wereldwijde reputatie die de UvA geniet op het gebied van onderzoek naar muziek in de Indonesische archipel kan hiermee gecontinueerd en versterkt worden. 

Semar Pagulinganorkesten waren belangrijke statussymbolen voor Balinese vorsten – ze zijn vernoemd naar Semara, de god van de liefde, en dienden bespeeld te worden in een speciaal daarvoor ontworpen hof binnen het paleis, de semarabawa, wanneer een vorst bij zijn eega sliep. Het is niet verwonderlijk dat de specifieke samenstelling van instrumenten die een Gamelan Semar Pagulingan kenmerkt, geroemd wordt om haar milde en verfijnde klank.

Performing the Orient: Edward Said’s Aida

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Wouter Capitain

May 15, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

Since the publication of Edward Said’s essay on Verdi’s Aida, the relations between this opera and its colonial context have been much debated. Although these relations are usually approached from a historical perspective, I will argue that it is necessary for musicology to reflect on the contemporary position Aida in operatic performance. More specifically, I will consider how racism continues to affect performances of Aida. Therewith, I attempt to bridge the presumed (and semi-institutionalised) binary between cultural and historical musicology by arguing that, at least concerning methodologies, no fundamental distinction can or should be made between the two subdisciplines. Indeed, historical musicology might be more cultural than it pretends to be, whereas cultural musicology is actually much preoccupied with historical contextualisation.

‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’: Hooks, Repetition, and Our Musical Memory

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Dr. John Ashley Burgoyne

April 17, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

Why are we able to remember some pieces of music for decades while other pieces of music seem to slip away no matter how many times we hear them? There is little consensus in the literature. Some theories suggest that a single, striking moment is sufficient – call it the ‘one time only’ hypothesis – while an alternative ‘one time more’ hypothesis suggests that repetition and return are essential to crafting a ‘hook’ in any genre. To test this hypothesis, we have undertaken a large and innovative experiment in the form of an iOS game during the Radio 2 Top 2000 broadcasts. Over 1500 people played the game, yielding more than 120 000 data points. In this talk, I will explain the experiment in more detail, who participated, and what we think it tells us about the workings of long-term musical memory.

Sounding Stereotypes: Construction of Place and Reproduction of Metaphors in the Music of Goran Bregović

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Dr. Aleksandra Marković

March 20, 2014, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

In her recently defended dissertation, entitled Sounding Stereotypes: Construction of Place and Reproduction of Metaphors in the Music of Goran Bregović, Aleksandra Marković explores the labelling of the Balkans in the popular/world music market. Goran Bregović successfully markets his music by tapping into well-known stereotypes about the Balkans, construed over centuries and in various realms as Western Europe’s antipode. A related pillar of his international image, next to the Balkans, is his representation of Roma and his identification with the romanticised image of Gypsies. Through discussing recycling and collage as Bregović’s main compositional techniques, this talk also deals with the musical features of Bregović’s “Balkanised” sound.

What does it mean to have a “good ear”?: Transfer of learning from musical training to perception of audio-visual materials

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Dr. Makiko Sadakata

February 20, 2014, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the enhancing effect of musical training on various cognitive skills, such as social interaction skills, working memory, and general IQ. This talk will focus on a specific case among these, namely, enhancing effect of musical training on an ability to perceive non-musical sounds. The first half of the talk will present a cross-linguistic experiment demonstrating that musicians are more accurate in discriminating various linguistic features. The second half will ask the question of what it means to have such a “good ear” in our daily-life multi-modal communication. It is well known that information of both face and voice contributes to our perception. What happens if you are good in perceiving information of voice here? Our recent findings will be presented and discussed.

Conference on Cultural Musicology, January 24-25, 2014

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF MUSICOLOGY

International Conference on Cultural Musicology
24-25 January 2014
University of Amsterdam
Nieuwe doelenstraat 16
1012 CP Amsterdam

On January 24-25, 2014 the musicology department of Amsterdam University is organising an international conference about cultural musicology on the occasion of the retirement of Prof. Wim van der Meer. As a cultural anthropologist and a musicologist Wim van der Meer has contributed significantly to the field of cultural musicology. For the last thirteen years he and Prof. Rokus de Groot were at the very core of the Amsterdam musicology department which saw an impressive renewal of both the education programmes and the research activities.
The term cultural musicology has been circulating a lot in the past decade, but often in an implicit manner. Through the joint efforts of the participants the conference aims to clarify and expand the field. Scholars with a widely divergent background and interest in music will present their contributions about fundamental issues related to the interconnections between music and culture in different parts of the world.
The conference is open to scholars and students in musicology, cultural studies and related disciplines as well as interested persons in general.
For additional information consult the website (where you can also register online):

http://culturalmusicology.org/conference-2014/

BA students of Musicology at UvA can receive 1 strip for every morning and/or afternoon they witness. 

“Onze kut-subcultuur-shit-muziek”: Dutch improvised music and the politics of (self-)representation

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap

MA Loes Rusch

December 12, 15:30-17:00

Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

During the 1960s a group of jazz musicians emerged in the Netherlands that distanced themselves from American models of jazz performance. Rather, these self-acclaimed improvising musicians (Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Willem Breuker, among others) sought for their own musical identity by challenging existing boundaries in terms of performance, musical genre, and artistic discipline. In this process they not only committed themselves to the renewal of musical life in the Netherlands, but also to more socially engaged forms of music making.

This talk addresses ways in which media representation has shaped the establishment of Dutch improvised music as a distinctively Dutch form of art. By taking a closer look at fascinating examples of improvised music (Breuker’s “Litany for the 14th of June, 1966,” Leo Cuyper’s Zeeland Suite) I will further demonstrate how improvising musicians strategically – and most intriguingly - deployed the media in their attempts to gain governmental support.

Composing inside electronics – The Music of David Tudor

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap

prof. Julia Kursell

November 19, 15:30-17:00

Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, zaal 3.01

For a long time, David Tudor (1927-1997) was mainly known as a pianist who premiered the music of avant-garde composers. More recently, his compositions and performances with his group “Composers inside Electronics” and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company have attracted attention. For the historian of music, however, these compositions seem almost inaccessible, because they aimed at live-performance in a radical sense: most often, Tudor made no score, no circuit diagrams, no other prescription; recordings are scarce. But what is more, he designed his equipment in such a way as to be self-destructive. Most importantly – and this will be the central feature of his music I address in this talk – the resulting sounds seemed to live on their own and they also ceased to exist in ways that made them resemble living beings. In my talk, I will relate this feature to the concept of indeterminacy that Tudor had encountered as a pianist in the music of John Cage and the New York School. Departing from there, I will then discuss how his music challenges tacit assumptions about self-identity in musical composition.

Conference MA Musicology Graduates: 25 October 10:00-18:00

Location: Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 1.01A (so not room 1.01, but if you found that it is just around the corner)

Program:

Session 1 (9:30-11:30)
9:30                 Nina Westzaan
10:00               Anne de Wilde
10:30               Sandra Wallner
11:00-11:15     Graduation ceremony
11:15-11:30     coffee break

Session 2 (11:30-14:00)
11:30               Niels Hoogendoorn
12:00               Meike Scholten
12:30               Martin Luyxck
13:00-13:15     Graduation ceremony
13:15-14:00     lunch break

Session 3 (14:00-16:00)
14:00               Sybren Woudstra
14:30               Arjanne Bruggeman
15:00               Anneke van Woerden
15:30-16:00     tea break

Session 4 (16:00-18:00)
16:00               Eleonoor Tchernoff
16:30               Jelma van Amersfoort
17:00               Wouter Capitain
17:30-17:45     Graduation ceremony
17:45-18:00     performance by Jelma van Amersfoort and Jelle Leistra


Abstracts: 

9:30-10:00

Nina Westzaan

First supervisor: Sander van Maas

 

Exploring Black Cones: The reinvention of loudspeaker experience in the Darmstadt school

Between 1946 and 1961 the loudspeaker listener became an important figure, as the loudspeaker was an emerging medium and as electroacoustic music gained ground in the Darmstadt repertoire. He remains in our midst even today. Most of our daily listening experiences are mediated by the loudspeaker. However, a concrete and concise characterization of the loudspeaker listener is lacking in research.

Regarding this particular form of listening subjectivity geared towards loudspeakers as sources of sound since 1880, the research question I addressed was ‘how did composers of the Darmstadt school (1946-1961) constitute a loudspeaker listenership of their electro-acoustic compositions in both live and recorded contexts?’ In my talk I will argue that between 1946 and 1961 a new relationship between composers and the loudspeaker listener took shape. Between 1950 and 1961 in particular, composers of the electronic Darmstadt repertoire intended to constitute a relationship with the loudspeaker listener on a participatory level. The performances of electroacoustic works were no longer tied to one fixed point in space or a chronological notion of time. The absence of these handholds was meant to induce an active and critical, individual listening experience.

10:00-10:30

Anne de Wilde

First supervisor: Wim van der Meer

 

The Complete Experience: Musical omnivores and their experience of live classical and popular music

It has long been a commonplace finding in academia that the rise of mediated music has meant the decline of live music. The live music sector seemed doomed to extinction, surviving only as the result of state-subsidised conservation. Yet, how can it then be that the live music sector seems to be ‘booming’ more than ever? Concerts are often sold out, people are willing to pay more than 80 Euros for a ticket and bands are able to put on extremely expensive and over-the-top shows. Live music is, in fact, not a competitor of mediated music in terms of leisure spending, but has rather developed in combination with recorded music, as part of a single, yet more complicated music market. Based on theories of Simon Frith (2007), Lawrence Kramer (2011), Hans Abbing (2009) and Richard A. Peterson (1992), this thesis analyses this complicated music market from the audience’s point of view. How are musical performances experienced by the listeners and how does this experience relate to the special meaning that people ascribe to it?

10:30-11:00

Sandra Wallner

First supervisor: Henkjan Honing

 

Probing relative pitch in non-human animals: Music-theoretical considerations

The discourse on music evolution forms the theoretical background for this thesis in which the problems and challenges of studying non-human animals’ relative pitch perception in a music-theoretical context are investigated. Relative pitch perception in humans seems to be a fundamental cognitive trait that is already present immediately after birth. Since records on the musical abilities and behaviours of extinct hominids are missing, it is difficult to scientifically illustrate the evolution of music. By examining non-human animals’ auditory perception and thereby defining the particular aspects of music perception that are common to humans and other non-human animals, it is possible to achieve a fundamental knowledge of music perception. For example: do animals listen to the interval size or solely to the direction of pitch changes when deciding whether a sequence is the same or not? Does the use of just intonation affect the discrimination task more than using the equal temperament tuning system? Do key modulations have an impact in solving a pitch perception task? In principal, animals can be brought up without music. If they still demonstrate some musical abilities, this could be evidence of the innateness of these particular musical features. However, animals do not make music by themselves, so the musical qualities discovered in animals would not confirm a particular adaptation for music but would rather refer to more general auditory mechanisms.

11:00-11:30 Graduation ceremonies and coffee break

11:30-12:00

Niels Hoogendoorn

First supervisor: Sander van Maas

the Next SoundCloud: on changing technologies and what it is to be a user

When SoundCloud released a redesign of its audio sharing platform in December 2012 (the Next SoundCloud), part of its existing user base blamed the company behind the service for setting sail in an undesired direction. The changes that were applied –aimed at providing a simpler and more elegant way to engage with audio online– were felt to be counterproductive; diminishing the value of the platform these users grew highly accustomed to and dependent on in their musical endeavors.

I argue that although these users’ disillusion is genuine, their criticism is somewhat misplaced. In my opinion, change is a characteristic attribute of Web technologies. Moreover, I advocate that usefulness should not be regarded the ultimate measure to determine a technology’s value. In fact, although the use of technologies is often firstly valued in terms of usefulness and convenience, use shouldn’t be considered a mere “use in order to”. Our use of technologies also needs to be investigative and explorative. We should develop and emancipate a kind of use of technologies that touches upon itself, turning inward rather than immediately pointing at something external —a kind of use that might as well be useless and perhaps even inconvenient at times.

12:00-12:30

Meike Scholten

First supervisor: Wim van der Meer

Musealisering van muziek: Contradictio in terminis?

Dit onderzoek is het resultaat van twee afstudeerscripties: één voor de onderzoeksmaster Kunstwetenschap en één voor de master Muziekwetenschap.
Bij beide staat de musealisering van muziek centraal. Is het vatten van een zo vluchtige kunstvorm als muziek in een ‘tastbare’ museale opstelling niet per definitie een contradictio in terminis?

Uitgangspunt bij het onderzoek is de muziekverzameling van Daniël François Scheurleer (1855 - 1927) die thans in het depot van het Gemeentemuseum Den Haag ligt begraven. Hoe kan een collectie die aan het eind van de negentiende eeuw nog tot één van de grootste en mooiste van Europa behoorde nu uit het zicht zijn verdwenen? Welke museologische en muziekwetenschappelijke veranderingen liggen hieraan ten grondslag?

Een reconstructie van de verzamel- en tentoonstellingsgeschiedenis van de collectie, toont aan dat drie museummodellen (traditioneel, reflectief en marktgericht) de rol en functie van muziek als (museum)kunst ingrijpend hebben veranderd
Daarnaast hebben de motieven die de basis vormden voor de aanleg van negentiende-eeuwse muziekverzamelingen een zeer tegenstrijdige uitwerking op de omgang met en conservering van muziek in een hedendaagse museale context, waarbij de eenheid in veelzijdigheid die van muziek een unieke kunstvorm maakt wordt aangetast.

Het musealiseren van muziek levert binnen de huidige Nederlandse cultuurpolitiek discussie op over de plaats, functie, context en betekenis van het begrip muziek. Afhankelijk van de definitie die aan muziekwetenschap – en in het bijzonder aan het begrip muzikaal erfgoed – wordt gegeven, blijft het musealiseren van muziek daarom een contradictio in terminis.

12:30-13:00

Martin Luyckx

First supervisor: Wim van der Meer

Populaire muziek en muziekwetenschappen. De emancipatie van muziekwetenschappelijk onderzoek naar populaire muziek

Dit onderzoek richt zich op de rol van populaire muziek binnen de muziekwetenschappen. Jarenlang is deze muziek genegeerd en zodoende buiten de beschouwing van muziekwetenschappelijk onderzoek gebleven. De muziek zou vergeleken met bijvoorbeeld klassieke muziek oninteressant zijn. Toch heeft het onderzoek op academisch niveau naar populaire muziek zich de afgelopen decennia weten te emanciperen. Wat waren hier de redenen voor en wat heeft er voor gezorgd dat men anders over deze muziek is gaan denken? In het bijzonder zal er hierbij ingegaan worden op de situatie zoals deze aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam was en is. Ook zal de huidige status van het musicologisch onderzoek naar populaire muziek aan bod komen, de staat van de zogenaamde ‘high analysis of low music’ (Griffiths 1999).

13:00-14:00 Graduation ceremonies and lunch break

14:00-14:30

Sybren Woudstra

First supervisor: Wim van der Meer

The Meaning of Measure

In the thirteenth century, John of Garland initiated the development of rhythmical notation. Over the course of centuries, this led to the rise and use of the musical measure as we know it today. Music theorists tend to make a distinction between pulsating and non-pulsating music. What can we say about the meaning of measure use in pulsating music? From an investigation of the influence of tempo on the perception of rhythm, I work towards a formulation of meaning in measure use. In my thesis, I explicate several types of musical meaning of measure use, such as symbolical and practical meaning. Two notable examples are the Holy Trinity, which was symbolized in the ternary division of the modal perfect long, and the Waltz, both a music genre and dance, that is inextricably connected to the three-quarter measure.

14:30-15:00

Arjanne Bruggeman

First supervisor: Wim van der Meer

Jazz funerals in New Orleans

Begrafenissen met muziek kwamen al voor de twintigste eeuw door heel Amerika voor, onder zowel de zwarte als de blanke bevolking. De term ‘jazz funeral’ ontstond pas rond 1950/1960 aangezien de muziek, die tijdens de begrafenissen werd gespeeld, in eerste instantie geen jazz was. Door verschillende ontwikkelingen vind je de jazz funeral tegenwoordig bijna alleen nog in New Orleans onder de zwarte bevolking.
De wortels van de jazz funeral kunnen onder andere worden teruggevonden in verschillende Afrikaanse stammen uit West-Afrika, de Mardi Gras, muziek en begrafenis tradities van New Orleans brassbands, genootschappen en verenigingen en de zwarte kerk.
Orkaan Katrina is een van de oorzaken dat het aantal jazz funerals per jaar is teruggelopen. Toch is dit ritueel nooit helemaal verdwenen. Verschillende bronnen laten zien dat jazz funerals een grote rol spelen in de cultuur en identiteit van New Orleans, maar hoe hebben de jazz funerals de identiteit van New Orleans beïnvloed en wat voor invloed hebben deze parades nu nog op de identiteit van de stad?

15:00-15:30

Anneke van Woerden

First supervisor: Saskia Kersenboom

“A museum and a theatre in one!”: effectiveness in MixMax Brasil

The main focus of my thesis is MixMax Brasil, the current exhibition of Tropenmuseum Junior. In my presentation I want to demonstrate that performance is an important and valuable strategy for museum exhibitions, especially within the field of intangible heritage. In order to provide a productive framework to the concept of performance, I will use the ideas of Peter Brook about Immediate Theatre. In his book The Empty Space Brook proposes various components to the form of theatre he considers most successful. I will contrast the ideas of Peter Brook with the specific working method of Tropenmuseum Junior to show how and where performance can be seen present in MixMax Brasil. Focusing on MixMax Brasil as a concrete case study, I hope to show how performance can be of value not only within the context of MixMax Brasil and Tropenmuseum Junior in specific, but also in the world of museums in general.

15:30-16:00 tea break

16:00-16:30

Eleonoor Tchernoff

First supervisor: Eddie Vetter

 

Legitimering als rechtvaardiging. Over de legitimering van het cultuurbeleid van de Nederlandse rijksoverheid met betrekking tot orkesten en ensembles

Onder leiding van staatssecretaris Halbe Zijlstra is tijdens het kabinet-Rutte I een van de grootste bezuinigingen op cultuur doorgevoerd: 200 miljoen euro, bijna een kwart van het totale rijkscultuurbudget. In de media wordt een gebrek aan een goede argumentatie of legitimering vóór cultuurbeleid als een mogelijke verklaring gezien. In Legitimering als rechtvaardiging is daarom onderzocht hoe de Nederlandse rijksoverheid het cultuurbeleid legitimeert, in het bijzonder voor orkesten en ensembles. Het onderwerp is belicht aan de hand van een literatuurstudie en een serie interviews met beleidsmakers, wetenschappers, subsidieaanvragers en personen uit het kunstenveld, vrijwel allen werkzaam binnen de klassiekemuzieksector.
Aan de hand van deelvragen is het onderwerp ‘legitimering’ verder uitgediept. Hoe kan het begrip geduid worden? Hoe kunnen legitimeringen als ‘kunst is goed voor de economie’ en ‘kunst maakt mensen gelukkig’ naast elkaar bestaan? Hoe heeft de rijksoverheid het cultuurbeleid vanaf 1945 tot 2012 gelegitimeerd? En wat is het belang ervan? Op deze vragen, en wat de parallel is met milieubeleid in Zweden, geeft deze presentatie een antwoord.

16:30-17:00

Jelma van Amersfoort

First supervisor: Eddie Vetter

 

Een gepassioneerd en origineel talent. Inleiding tot het leven en werk van Pauline Duchambge (1776-1858)

Pauline Duchambge (1776-1858) componeerde in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw ruim driehonderd romances voor zang met piano-, harp- of gitaarbegeleiding die in haar tijd zeer populair waren, en die werden gewaardeerd door musici als François-Joseph Fétis en Hector Berlioz. Aan de hand van een historie van de romance in Frankrijk, een biografie van de componiste en van een aantal dichters met wie ze samenwerkte, alsmede analyses van een selectie van haar romances heb ik in mijn scriptie onderzocht hoe dit oeuvre past in de geschiedenis van de romance, en wat het oeuvre en haar levensloop zeggen over het culturele klimaat van haar tijd.

Een van Duchambges belangrijkste kwaliteiten blijkt haar keuze van goede en interessante teksten, van zowel bekende als onbekende dichters, mannen en vrouwen, highbrow en obscuur. De liederen die ze schreef hebben daardoor een zeer uiteenlopende thematiek en vertelperspectief.

Daarnaast was ze vooral op melodisch gebied origineel, begaafd en vindingrijk: ze gebruikt een soort cellentechniek om haar liederen intern tot een hecht geheel te smeden. Dit is door tijdgenoten zeker erkend. Het succes van haar werk kan – behalve aan de intrinsieke kwaliteit –  tevens worden toegeschreven aan externe factoren als de behoefte van de opkomende burgerij aan toegankelijke, nostalgische en eenvoudige liederen, en aan muzikaal individualisme, escapisme en rollenspel in een restrictieve samenleving.

17:00-17:30

Wouter Capitain

First supervisor: Wim van der Meer

 

Performing the Orient: Edward Said’s (and Giuseppe Verdi’s) Aida

In the last one or two decades, musicology has attempted to catch up with the debates on ‘orientalism’ – the construction of ‘the Orient’ through cultural artefacts. Verdi’s Aida (1871) is, largely due to a highly critical essay on this opera by the prominent cultural critic Edward Said (1935-2003), probably the opera figuring most prominently within these debates. What disturbs me about these debates is that they generally focus on Aida from a historical perspective, thereby granting relatively little attention to the contemporary position of orientalism within operatic performance. In my talk, I will criticise this approach by discussing Peter Konwitschny’s production of Aida from 1994, in which the historical character of the opera is explicitly questioned. My argument is that, rather than treating problematic artefacts as part of a cultural heritage, musicology should take contemporary performances of Aida as an opportunity to reflect on our own constructions of and prejudices towards ‘the other’. More specifically, critical reflection on Aida can and should shed light on the celebratory attitude of intellectual, technological and economic advancement that necessarily involves, as a counterpoint to hegemonic self-glorification, the suppression of the other.

17:45 – 18:00
Performance by Jelle Leistra (tenor) and Jelma van Amersfoort (early-romantic guitar), who will perform four songs by the composer Pauline Duchambge (1776-1858):

Le bouquet de bal – text by  Eugène Scribe
La jeune fille Russe - text by Élim Mestscherski
Coulez, coulez mes jours - text by Mélanie Waldor
Cancione amoroso - text by Gil Vicente

Resisting Cultural Commodification: Maskanda Music as Discourse of Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap

Barbara Titus

October 16, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

In this talk I address ways in which South Africans manoeuvre between legacies of apartheid and opportunities to ‘tune in’ with the rest of the globe. These manoeuvres are played out in maskanda performance which is consumed as Zulu pop music in South African public spaces. Through the close reading of a specific musical event, the MTN Onkweni Royal Cultural Festival in Ulundi in October 2009, I reveal that seemingly totalizing impositions of power – in this case the commodification of Zulu culture by the Zulu royal house – can still lead to a diversity of musical framings, artistic self-conceptions, and social identifications. Responses to the event’s commodification, in the form of musical performance and verbal dialogue, function as a ‘lens’ enabling us to observe this diversity.