Musicological Society of Australia

— Chapter Reports —

Northern NSW

On 14 July 2002 the chapter held its well-attended AGM to re-form and adopt a new constitution. The chapter’s activities had been increasingly diminishing during the last decade, with barely any activity within the chapter during the past two years. This was despite several members of the chapter remaining active at national conferences. A membership drive commenced in 2001, however, and the absence of an elected or continuous executive body highlighted the need for the chapter to turn a new leaf in its history and adopt a new constitution and executive model. A new model was proposed and adopted which would hopefully allow for the waning and waxing membership levels of the chapter as witnessed in the previous decade, although the current membership levels are witnessing an upward trend. In its essence, the new model allowed for an increased number of officers in the committee as membership numbers climbed. Based upon current membership levels a new committee was elected at the AGM to manage the affairs of the chapter for the next two years. It consists of Rex Eakins (President), Jason Stoessel (Secretary/Treasurer) and Margaret Gummow (Committee Member).

Future initiatives

The chapter will resume regular chapter meetings on the 17 October 2002. It was also decided at the AGM that the Chapter will be capitalising on the 2003 Gordon Athol Anderson Memorial Lecture and arranging a meeting to coincide with that event. In this way, the scholar invited to the Anderson Lecture would also be invited to participate in the coincident chapter meeting.

Armidale will be hosting the inaugural New England Bach Festival, February 13–17 2003. At the AGM, the members of the chapter resolved their ‘in principle’ support for this exciting event which promises to become one of the leading 18th century music festivals in this country dedicated to the music of J.S. Bach and his family. The festival, under the auspices of the festival patron Gustav Leonhardt, is for the most part brainstormed by one of the chapter’s members, Terry Norman, and has the object of bringing to the public professional, historically informed performances of J.S. Bach’s music, from both established and more innovative perspectives. Leading performers at the festival will include Rosalind Halton, Lucinda Moon, Jamie Hey, Elysium Ensemble and Sergio di Pieri. The festival will also showcase local artists including Terry Norman, Zana Clarke and Caroline Downer. The chapter committee is in the process of enthusiastically considering a proposal made by the New England Bach Festival Association that the chapter host a lecture in conjunction with the festival on a theme drawn from J.S. Bach’s life and/or music. It is anticipated that a chapter meeting will also coincide with this event.

The NNSW Chapter will continue with is membership drive and hopes to establish branches of the Chapter in the broader New England area and in coastal regions.

Jason Stoessel, Secretary/Treasurer, NNSW Chapter

Queensland

Following the AGM in March, in which most of the 2001 committee was returned, MSAQ has already held three events, with a further two planned for 2002. They essentially fit within three categories: the Words About Music series, the Student Symposium and Members’ Day, and the Inaugural Annual Lecture.

Words About Music is the name given to a series of panel discussions concerned with issues currently facing the discipline of musicology. The first panel, convened in April, went by the racy title “Sex: Now That We’ve Got Your Attention, Let’s Talk About Music,” and looked into issues of gender and sexuality in relation to the study of music. The second event, held in May, was titled “Is Music Analysis (ir)Relevant?”, and looked at the place of musical analysis in the current musicological climate. The committee offers thanks to all panel members for their fine contributions. These events have set a strong platform for the series, with a third event set for October on an ethnomusicological theme.

The Annual Student Symposium and Members’ Day took place on Sunday 25 August and was, once again, a great success. Following last year’s theme of “Music and Power,” this year the theme was “Music and the Body.” Special thanks must go to the Queensland Conservatorium’s Stephen Emmerson for generously agreeing to adjudicate the Gordon Spearritt Prize for Best Student Presentation. Thanks also to Gordon for his continuing and exceptional support of the Queensland chapter. All papers on the day addressed the notion of “body” from some perspective: Kate Barney outlined tensions and conflicts in the representation of indigenous music, Jacqueline Parry talked on music and the human rights movement in Australia, and Roslyn Kay outlined a history of music in the burial of bodies. Highly commended prizes went to Solange Eeltink for her examination of music and the brain, and Paula Melville-Clark for her research into the benefits of Eurhythmics for piano students. Joint first prize went to Brydie Bartleet for her ethnographic research into female conductors, and David Irving for his work with recently discovered manuscripts in the Philippines.

Still to come this year is another new initiative of the MSAQ committee, namely the establishment of an Annual Lecture. This event will feature Gordon Spearritt sharing his wealth of knowledge in musicology and ethnomusicology on Thursday 26 September. All in all, MSAQ has been undergoing good growth, specifically in terms of the involvement of graduate students in the chapter’s initiatives. In the coming year it is hoped that greater input from staff at all the major Queensland music institutions (QUT and the Con, as well as the University of Queensland) will further broaden the reach of MSAQ. Further to this, the committee is continually engaged in addressing the problems concerned with having such a large number of inactive members.

Gavin Carfoot, Secretary, Queensland Chapter

South Australia

The South Australian Chapter has had an extremely busy past six months with the presentation of regular monthly seminars at the Elder School of Music and a partnership with Adelaide Baroque to coordinate a series of seven plenary sessions and a public forum at the Marryatville Academy of Early Music.

On 30 April 2002, Paul Attinello presented a paper on the musical works created in response to AIDS and its impact on peoples’ lives. Entitled Sex Versus Death: Music about Aids, the paper was Paul’s last for the SA Chapter before leaving South Australia for his lecturing position in Newcastle upon Tyne. Paul has contributed much to the SA Chapter’s program over the past 12 months, and he will be missed by the membership.

Associate Professor Kimi Coaldrake provided the SA Chapter with a seminar entitled Pro Musica Nipponia & the Contemporary Japanese Music Scene. The paper examined the activities of Pro Musica Nipponia and its place in the contemporary music scene in Japan over the past 37 years.

Two recent graduates, Aliese Millington and Christopher Wainwright, presented papers at the 35 June 2002 seminar. Aliese Millington’s paper Cross Over and Clever Names: Interviewing String Group “Four Play” discussed her recent fieldwork with the cross over group “Four Play” in Sydney. Christopher Wainwright explored the impact of Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony in London in his paper Haydn, Salomon & the “Surprising” London Symphony.

The 2001 Naomi Cumming Postgraduate in Musicology prizewinner, Gemma Munro, presented a seminar to the SA Chapter membership on 30 July 2002. Her paper dealt with her research on the language used by musicians in expressing their feelings during performance. The paper was entitled Accounting for Emotions in Musical Performance.

Marryatville Academy of Early Music

From 7 to 13 July 2002, the SA Chapter engaged in a productive partnership the performing group Adelaide Baroque, in the coordination of a series of seven plenary sessions at the Marryatville Academy of Early Music. The lectures were on a wide range of topics associated with performance practice of early music. The academy participants and interested early music followers were presented with papers by John O’Donnell, Marion Middenway, Graham Strahle, Helen Rusak, Hans Maria Kneihs, Jula Szuster and Mark Smith. Jula Szuster chaired a public forum on the future of early music, with panel members Simon Healy (ABC FM), Graham Strahle (musicologist and music reviewer), James Koehne (Adelaide Symphony Orchestra), Ben Dollman (violinist) and Hans Maria Kneihs (Professor of Recorder, Vienna Hoffschule). The forum raised some pressing issues concerning the future directions for the performance and appreciation of early music.

Jula Szuster President, SA Chapter

Sydney

The Sydney chapter’s Graduate Music Symposium was held on 10 August at the University of New South Wales. Over the last four years, the Sydney Chapter has tried to locate the symposium at each of the Universities where musicology is a focus. This smaller scale symposium, with six varied and well-prepared papers, proved valuable as most presenters plan to present at the National Conference later this year.

Leanne Power’s research on Eugene Onegin is part of her Masters at the University of Newcastle. The paper looked at Tchaikovsky’s portrayal of the character of Onegin, briefly comparing the libretto with Pushkin’s novel in verse, and then looking in depth at Tchaikovsky’s musical portrayal of Onegin.

Kheng Koay’s research on Thematic and Motivic Development in String Quartet No.3 by Alfred Schnittke is detailed and comprehensive. This paper provided discussion on and demonstration of the creative compositional methods of Schnittke bringing quoted materials to service new ideas by developing motifs in different circumstances. The paper discussed the generation of pitch elements from the thematic and motivic usage and their relationships through pitch class set analysis as one of the essential compositional techniques of Schnittke. It sought to explain the common basis of pitch materials in this quartet in their diversity. The presenter explained that subsequent directions would involve more macro analysis.

Rachel Hocking, from the University of New South Wales, is researching Australian Dance Music 1964-2000. Her paper discussed issues in analysis. Her data gathering is in the scores from Australian composers for choreographic music. Her research refers to composers such as Carl Vine and Graeme Koehne who have made significant musical contributions to this area. She has listed over 350 scores of varying length cover many different styles of music and different types of ensembles, reflecting the various styles and subjects of dance attempted, as well as the varying tastes of choreographers and audiences. From these a representative sample has been chosen and the research will develop a method for analysis.

James Hullick from the University of Melbourne, is undertaking research, Unravelling Systems of Belief Music Composition, from a composer’s perspective. This paper explored the role that an individual's belief structures have on the success of their oeuvre during the composer’s lifetime as well as eras after the composer’s death. Mozart was suggested as a case study, and his belief systems were explored and analysed. The paper discussed why belief is so important to an artistic voice, exploring the idea that composers with deeply considered belief systems appear to survive better than do those whose belief systems are weaker.

Kwok-wai Ng’s research is on Transformation of the tôgaku (Tang music) modes from Tang-period China (618-907) to Modern Japan. His project in progress investigates the transformations that the tôgaku modes used in Japan today have undergone in the millennium since they were imported from China, with special concentration on the six modes commonly used in modern tôgaku performance. A stimulating discussion on tuning followed this paper.

Andrew Robbie’s research is on Cut Speed and Frame Depth in Music Video. The music in the videos is the primary focus and the transcriptions form the basis for an exploration of the relationship between the rhythm of visual musical modes in the video clips. The paper detailed the textual construction of interpersonal space, as it is manifest as frame depth in the visual mode.

Chapter members enjoyed the discussions following these papers and look forward to the development of these ideas at the National Conference.

Anne Power, President, Sydney Chapter

Western Australia

The WA Chapter has continued its practice of linking MSA meetings to the UWA School of Music’s Honours and Postgraduate Seminar.

During first semester 2002 four papers were presented, notably David Tunley’s ‘Franz Schubert’s Influence on French Song’ which forms a chapter in his book just published by Ashgate Press titled ‘Salons, Singers and Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song 1830-1870’. Other papers included: a study of some seventeenth-century French motets entitled ‘The Funeral Music for Queen Marie-Therese’ by MA candidate David Gething; ‘An Analysis of Benjamin Britten’s Our Hunting Fathers’—a study of both the literary and musical sources of Britten's early work by MA candidate Martyn Payne—; and an expanded version of David Symons’s earlier MSA Conference paper on Australia’s Jindyworobak composers. This paper is the result of further research carried out since the earlier paper was given and it will appear in a forthcoming issue of Context (2003).

The Semester 2 programme has commenced with a paper presented by PhD candidate Ollivier Cuneo on the influence of Pierre Boulez the conductor on Boulez the composer.

Forthcoming meetings will include a talk by composer Ross Edwards on his recent work including his Fourth Symphony (a meeting held in conjunction with UWA’s annual New Music Week) and further papers by Masters and Honours candidates. Details will be given in the next Newsletter.

Meanwhile David Tunley has been invited to present a Keynote Address to the 2002 Conference of the Australian branch of the International Association of Music Librarians (IAML) held in Perth in September. The title of his address is ‘Search and Research’ and will be of interest to music researchers especially in the field of Australian music. Further details will also appear in the next Newsletter.

David Symons, President, WA Chapter

— conference reports —

IMS Congress in Leuven, August 1–7, 2002; SIMS 2004

About 800 delegates from around the world took part in the Congress, with about 650 presenting papers on many musicological and ethnomusicological topics.

Leuven is a beautiful town, like an outdoor museum, with its cobbled streets and period buildings. The Catholic University of Leuven and adjunct buildings are spread out across the town. The Town Hall, where Directorium members were treated to a reception by the Mayor, is extremely ornate, decorated with hundreds of statures of saints and prominent historical figures. Tours to nearby Brussels included a visit to the wonderful Museum of Musical Instruments, which was set up by the famous curator Mahillon, who devised the classification of musical instruments scheme that was the basis of Sachs’ and Hornbostel’s scheme, published in the early twentieth century. The museum contains seven floors of beautifully displayed instruments from around the world, including valuable historical specimens.

Quite a few Australian and New Zealand scholars presented papers or sessions at the congress, or had their papers read. Some (to me) new directions in musicology emerged in a few sessions, including a day of sessions on Evolutionary Musicology - involving a very recent neo-Darwinian stream of thought devoted to the human need and qualities of music. The sessions on narrative theory also featured some novel ideas and solutions to problems.

In my addresses to the General Assembly and the Directorium meeting, I outlined the attractions of Melbourne and the themes and proposed arrangements for the next Symposium of the International Musicological Society, to be held in the Melbourne CBD from Sunday July 12 to Friday July 16 2004. I found a great deal of interest among scholars and students at the Congress to take part in SIMS 2004. Besides presenting papers, quite a few intend to ask their best research colleagues in their latest fields of research to take part in sessions they will organise on topics related to the themes. Some sessions will be multidisciplinary, like the Evolutionary Musicology sessions at the Leuven Congress, where musicologists, ethnomusicologists, anthropologists and biologists joined to present their latest research in the same sessions.

A number of members of the IMS Directorium expect to take part. The newly elected President of IMS is David Fallows, who is known to MSA members through his having taken part in the musicology conference at Melbourne University's Faculty of Music on the occasion of its centenary. Dorothea Baumann remains Secretary-General and Madeleine Segli the Treasurer.

SIMS 2004

MSA members should note that the Call for Papers and the SIMS 2004 website will be set up soon. We are hoping that as many MSA and MSNZ members and music students as possible will take part, not only because we expect that the event will serve as a stimulus to musicological morale and activity in this part of the world (as it did on previous, similar occasions), but also because we want to present our best face for the international community that will attend. Moreover, the national conference of MSA will be part of SIMS 04.

Margaret Kartomi, ex officio IMS

‘Somewhat Beside the Point’: IMS 2002

Many musicologists of my acquaintance did not attend IMS 2002. Some asked how the conference went; I’m afraid I told them they didn’t miss much. I’ll admit to a certain anticipatory prickliness about the event—I was among those who were indignant over the choice of Leuven over Canberra in 1997, which I regarded as proof of the provincial character of what should perhaps be renamed EMS–PAFVC (The European Musicological Society Plus A Few Visiting Colonials). Though Leuven is a charming university town, the logistical setup seemed inadequate to the size and complexity of the conference—which made that Belgian choice even more exasperating. Despite the fact that some of the organizers, notably Barbara Haggh, were unusually and graciously willing to help participants in a variety of time-consuming ways, the organization on the whole seemed rather incoherent—resulting in an experience quite different from that of the London congress in 1997 which, although inadequately climate-controlled, was run in a tighter and more successfully professional way.

The opening ceremonies were elaborate and symbolically impressive. Lásló Somfai gave an opening speech where he unfortunately felt the need to say that, because the Eastern Europeans, who had better financial support than they had previously, were attending for the first time in large numbers, it was a good thing that the conference was not held in Australia. Some hackles raised at this remark; somewhat more difficult to bear was an hour-long keynote address by a guest professor on ‘Music and the Human Genome’—a peculiar mishmash of misunderstood aesthetics pinned under a discussion of genetics, unexpectedly compounded by appalling slides of spina bifida patients. All of this was partially rescued by the appearance of Queen Fabiola. You may not be familiar with the name—I’m afraid I wasn’t; I wondered if she might be an opening act for RuPaul (“Ah’d lahk tuh do a number that wowed ’em last week in Antwerp”)—but she proved to be the Queen of Belgium, a dignified lady in her 70s. Security was tight, and we had to stand while she was present—despite not being, for the most part, Belgian subjects.

The conference was, on the whole, civilized and cheerful. Delegates appeared to be generally happy, obviously enjoying the rich Belgian food and pleasant small-European-town surroundings, along with each other’s relaxed company. Unfortunately, the structure and planning were not as wonderful. The subject categories—“eight broad categories that were conceived to bring together work from across the spectrum of sub-specialties that characterize the present scholarly study of music”—were evidently designed in an attempt to break out of positivist models; four of them (“Hearing—Performing—Writing… The Dynamics of Change in Music… Who Owns Music?… Musical Migrations”) were broadly conceptual, more philosophical and cultural than ‘musicological,’ while others (“Musica Belgica… Form and Invention… Instruments” and the too-predictable “Sources”) were unexciting. Unfortunately, the topics, especially the cultural ones, were apparently not understood by those making up the program; groupings of papers seemed thrown together and remarkably incoherent—perhaps another proof that a background in historical musicology does not necessarily prepare one to launch into philosophical or cultural thought. The resultant sessions—many of which consisted of papers that had little to do with each other—resulted in a situation where attendees would often prefer to go to just one or two papers out of a given session.

Unfortunately, this was made difficult, and at times impossible, by the mildly bizarre session schedule. A casual perusal (all right, an obsessive accounting) of session timings over the first two days produces the following: 2 papers in 1 or 1.5 hours; 3 papers in 1.5 or 2 hours; 4 papers in 2 or 2.5 hours; 5 papers in 3 or 3.5 hours; 6 papers in 3.5 hours; and 7 papers in 4 hours. (Bear with me—this is going somewhere.) As a result, I count eight possible time windows for papers, going from 30 all the way up to 45 minutes—wildly confusing for those who wished to hear specific papers, and of course quite unfair for those giving them.

Session times did not follow any clear pattern, except that they all started or ended at a half-hour mark; for instance, morning sessions started anywhere from 9:00 to 10:30 and ended anywhere from 10:30 to 1:00 pm. Afternoon and evening sessions were even more varied. All of this was worsened by the numbers of participants who cancelled too late to be removed from the program—no fewer than sixty, according to the two-page errata tucked into an otherwise elegant program. To compound all this, many session chairs did not even try to give participants equal amounts of time; perhaps the organizers did not remind them of this responsibility. At least twice, I saw the fourth and last person in a two-and-a-half-hour session reduced to twenty minutes for her paper, with no time for questions. Quite a mess on the whole, and a real shame for what should be a professionally produced conference.

As a result of all the above, it seemed that it didn’t matter whether anyone heard any papers, but only that they read them: as though the entire function of this elaborate congress, with seven hundred participants and five years of production, was to add items to people’s CVs, rather than to share or discuss research. I suppose that is all these conferences may be about, at least in the view of some people; but I, for one, have always liked the big AMS/SMT/SEM conferences held every decade, and I continue to think that even an enormous conference can be interesting if it is tightly organized.

The logistics of housing, in addition to the endless peripheral requests that are the norm at conferences, was rather fecklessly handled; despite the efforts of Patrick Lenaers, who did a great deal of personal overseeing of details, his student assistants often seemed to have no idea what was going on. The lack of good town maps (apparently typical of Leuven, where even the tourist office had only photocopies of an incomplete map—you needed to go the bus station to get anything better) merely compounded the difficulties of the first day, where our keys were not where we had been told they would be in a letter, and we needed to walk halfway across town to get them at the lobbies of our dormitories. Much of the conference was handled by Omnia, a local company, who seemed to do rather poorly for a professional conference arrangements service.

Of course, a conference report should focus on the papers (and this one would, if that had seemed to be the focus of the experience, as it should be). I delivered a paper for the MSA’s own John Phillips on ‘Gay Subjectivity and Musicology’ (he did not attend because it is as expensive for Australians to go to Belgium as it is for Europeans to go to Australia, despite what several people claimed). The paper made a suggestion radical even in queer studies—that aspects of queer theory could be used to discuss even heterosexual composers, such as in this case Wagner and Bruckner. Phillips’ careful reasoning of a tricky argument interested and seemed to please most of the listeners—but not Rita Steblin, who threw a public tantrum over a passing reference to the old controversy over Schubert’s sexuality. At one point in my messy attempts to manage the discussion—for instance I excused myself, after snapping at her, that I was not representing the paper’s author, as he would have tried to be more polite than I was able to manage—a man turned and said coldly to her, “You are ignoring the fact that this paper was about Bruckner.”

The Australian presence was represented by Nicholas Routley, Michael Noone and Andrew McCredie, among others. Margaret Kartomi, in addition to giving a paper, worked strenuously to invite people to the 2004 IMS symposium to be held in Melbourne. I was impressed by her direct approach—I saw her come up to a set of musicologists resting in chairs between sessions, give them the Melbourne flyers, and firmly and individually invite them to attend. Hopefully this approach will bear some fruit.

Other excellent papers, among many, were given by Lawrence Kramer (‘Beethoven, Chopin and the Hermeneutics of Resemblance’—theoretically sophisticated and expressively musical) and Christopher Shultis (‘Intentionally Misunderstood: John Cage at Darmstadt, 1958’—a fascinating problem in Cage reception). Of the pre-organized sessions, I was especially pleased by Susan Jackson’s ‘Everyone but the Composer,’ which included excellent papers by Charles Atkinson, Laurie Stras, Richard Wistreich, and Jackson herself, with Andrew Dell’Antonio responding. There were other papers I wished to see, especially Kerman’s deconstruction of a Bach fugue, and the sessions on music and visual arts organized by Siglind Bruhn and Yulia Kreinin; but the chaotic schedule tended to get in the way, as well as abbreviating the question times for many papers.

For those interested in twentieth-century music, the new Leuven center Matrix was an impressive experience. Mark Delaere has created something remarkable—a research center for contemporary music whose purview is expanded far beyond the merely national. Rather than creating a collection of works by Flemish composers, in the nationalist way exhibited in many countries, he has demanded and gotten numerous scores, recordings and journals covering a much broader history of twentieth-century art music—and all in less than a year since its founding. An exemplary database, available on the Web at www.matrix.mu, makes me predict that Matrix will be more generally and flexibly useful than such centers as Donemus (Amsterdam) and Mica (Vienna), among many others.

There were good meals, architecture, day trips to Bruges and Brussels… a good time was had by most, if not all. I only wish the conference itself had functioned better. It is tricky for me, right now: having been prevented from taking the position in Sydney, I have now become a European, teaching at the University of Newcastle. Yet it remains unacceptable to me that the IMS is so absurdly insular, so Eurocentric: we all need a better, more professional, and vastly more representative international society. I hope we can find a way to make one.

Paul Attinello

Indigenous Performance Research

A Symposium in association with the Garma Festival of Traditional Culture, 10–12 August (Symposium), 13–17 August (Garma Festival)

Gunyangara and Gulkula, Gove Peninsula, Northeast Arnhem Land

This symposium brought together a number of Indigenous leaders with musicologists, choreologists and other interested parties in order to explore future directions in Indigenous performance research. The meeting was convened by Mandawuy Yunupingu, Marcia Langton and Allan Marett and the symposium secretary was Aaron Corn. It was opened by Galarrwuy Yunupingu.

Each morning, Mandawuy Yunupingu worked with singers Gurratjiri Gurruwiwi and Witiyana Marika and yidaki player Djalu Gurruwiwi to present knowledge about the Marripan (Green Turtle) series. Yothu Yindi also presented an acoustic version of a new song by Mandawuy about Green Turtle which was given its first offical performance at the concert that concluded the Garma Festival. Afternoons were taken up with presentations and discussions about issues such as the recording and archiving of songs, the conservation of song traditions within communities, and the dissemination of knowledge about songs (see conference program at

www.garma.telstra.com/forum02/music_symProg.htm).

About 60 people attended the symposium, including several members of the MSA and representatives of the communities of Yirrkala, Galiwin’ku, Maningrida, Ngukurr, Numbulwar, Belyuen and Borraloola. There were many lively discussions. A statement about the future of performance research was issued at the end of the symposium and presented to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Clare Martin. Parts of this statement were read into the proceedings of the NT parliament by the Minister for Community Relations, John Ah Kit. Further information about the symposium can be found at www.garma.telstra.com/forum02/music_sym.htm.

Garma Statement on Indigenous Music and Performance

Songs, dances and ceremonial performances form the core of Yolngu and other Indigenous cultures in Australia. It is through song, dance and associated ceremony that Indigenous people sustain their cultures and maintain the Law and a sense of self within the world. Performance traditions are the foundation of social and personal wellbeing, and with the ever increasing loss of these traditions, the toll grows every year. The preservation of performance traditions is therefore one of the highest priorities for Indigenous people.

Indigenous songs should also be a deeply valued part of the Australian cultural heritage. They represent the great classical music of this land. These ancient musical traditions were once everywhere in Australia, and now survive as living traditions only in several regions . Many of these are now in danger of being lost forever. Indigenous performances are one of our most rich and beautiful forms of artistic expression, and yet they remain unheard and invisible within the national cultural heritage.

Without immediate action many Indigenous music and dance traditions are in danger of extinction with potentially destructive consequences for the fabric of Indigenous society and culture.

The recording and documenting of the remaining traditions is a matter of the highest priority both for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Many of our foremost composers and singers have already passed away leaving little or no record.

At the Garma Symposium on Music and Performance held in association with the 2002 Garma Festival, the following proposals were put forward in order to address the current critical situation:

· That the establishment of local Knowledge Centres with digital storage and retrieval systems be supported as a basis for the repatriation of sound and visual records to communities. Such records play an important role in the maintenance and protection of tradition. Research should be conducted into the most culturally appropriate ways of storing and retrieving knowledge from computers. It is acknowledged that different communities may ultimately adopt different storage and delivery systems, and that there should be regular meetings to explore the success or failure of different strategies.

· That a national recording project be established to ensure that the songs of as many singers as possible are held for future generations. This project will be conducted under Indigenous control with an advisory board of senior men and women from a broad range of communities guiding its priorities and strategies.

· That the recording and repatriation of songs to local Knowledge Centres be supported by universities and other institutions to assist Indigenous communities to integrate their cultural knowledge into a broad range of community activities such as education, bilingual, and health programs; and that the maintenance of performance and ceremony be encouraged by their incorporation into community governance.

· That well-documented recordings of Indigenous song be published in order to educate the broader Australian public and international audiences about Aboriginal performance traditions. The production of both the recordings and documentation should be based on broad consultation with learned senior men and women who would control access to sacred knowledge in song texts. Other forms of production, including multimedia and web based forms should also be explored.

The Symposium calls on the Federal government to support and sustain Indigenous song traditions through the establishment of Knowledge Centres, and a national recording project as a National Research Priority. The Symposium resolves to pursue funding through the Australian Research Council as well as through Local, State and Territory, and Federal Government, and Industry. The participants resolved to request governments, universities, industry bodies and other institutions to acknowledge and respond to this urgent need.

This statement emanates from the Garma Symposium on Music and Performance convened by Mandawuy Yunipingu, Marcia Langton and Allan Marett at the Yirrnga Music Development Centre at Gunyangara from 10–12 August 2002.

Allan Marett, ex officio ICTM

— Forthcoming conferences —

25th National MSA Conference

University of Newcastle, 3–6 October 2002

Music Research: New Directions for a New Century

The program has now taken near-final form. The plenary addresses are:

· Suzanne Cusick (New York): Performance as Research: Thoughts on “performance studies”, “new musicology” and North American Musicology’s Performances of Social Power

· Roy Howat (Royal College of Music): Research as Performance and Performance as Research, and

· Rolf Gehlhaar (London): Reality Music / Virtual Music / Music and Sound Art

Sectional sessions encompass a wide range of topics, including Discourse of Identity, Composers and Spirituality, Technology and Music Education, Current Issues in Japanese Music Research, Music and Environments, Theory and Analysis, Opera, Modern and Postmodern Composition and many more.

Other attractions include a range of performances and demonstrations (including a world premiere opera performance), a Conference Dinner in the Hunter Valley vineyards, and the unique beach and harbour lifestyle of Newcastle.

On behalf of the Conference Committee, I warmly invite all members of the MSA to Newcastle this October, and hope that as many as possible of you are able to come.

Michael Ewans, Convenor

mewans@mail.newcastle.edu.au

The draft conference programme as of 1 September 2002 follows.

25th National MSA Conference

University of Newcastle, 3–6 October 2002

‘Music Research: New Directions for a New Century’

Draft Programme

— WEDNESDAY 2 October —

3:00–6:00 Registration (Concert Hall Foyer)

6:00 Reception (Concert Hall Foyer)

8:00 Opening Concert (Concert Hall): Spontaneous Events of Great Wonder

Curated by Margery Smith and Rosalind Halton

— THURSDAY 3 October —

9:00–9:30 Welcome to Country and Dean’s Welcome (Concert Hall)

9:45–11:15 Session A: Music and Society I

1. Music in Australia (NH 1)

· Anne Doggett (Ballarat) Harmony on the Goldfields; an investigation of music in the context of racial boundaries in early Ballarat

· Dianne Gome (Australian Catholic University) The Impact of Church Union on Congregational Music: The Uniting Church in Australia, 1977–82

· Jula Szuster (Adelaide) Colonel Light’s Impaired Vision: Musical Life in Colonial Adelaide and its Legacy

2. Music in Societies (NH 2)

· Stan Breckinridge (California State, Fullerton Campus) Singing with Attitude; Harmonic and Rhythmic Reflections of Women Vocalists 1950s–1990s

· Christopher Cockburn (Rhodes University, South Africa) Contesting Kings; Society and the Reception of Handel’s Messiah in South Africa

· Linda Kouvaras (Melbourne) When the String Snaps: Two Domestic Prison Scenarios

3. Music in Societies (UH 1)

· Roland Bannister (Charles Sturt University) I Canti di Nonno Tony Signor: Documenting the Music of Australia’s Italian Immigrants with Antonio 'Tony' Colla, Antonio Comin and Gabriele Vardanega

· Tim Humphrey (Monash) When a military band learned Vietnamese traditional music: the experience of the Band of the Fifth Battalion Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam 1966–1967

· Ruth Lee Martin (Australian National University) Images of Scotland: Tradition and the Construction of Identity

4. Discourses of Identity (UH 2)

· Corrinna Bonshek (University of Western Sydney) Multiplicity and Becomings in Gretchen Miller’s Inland (2000)

· Gavin Carfoot (University of Queensland) Whoops! Accidents and Musicology

· Gemma Munro (Adelaide) The ‘Free’ Musician: Discourses of Identity in Accounts of Performance

11:15–11:45 Morning Coffee (Concert Hall Foyer)

11:45–1:15 Session B: Plenary (Concert Hall)

Suzanne Cusick (New York) Performance as Research: Thoughts on "performance studies", "new musicology" and North American Musicology's Performances of Social Power

Lunch

1:15–2:00 MSA Networking Luncheon (Concert Hall Foyer)

2:00–3:30 Session C: Music and Society

1. Composers and Spirituality (NH 1)

· Andrew Greenwood (Sydney) Webern and Theosophy

· Anne Marshman (Melbourne) Tippett’s ‘Divine Image’: Exploring the Philosophical Context of the Music of Michael Tippett

· Sally Macarthur (University of Western Sydney) From the Meticulous to the Sublime: Anne Boyd’s Jesus Reassures his Mother

2. Theories of Creativity (UH 1)

· Timothy Teo Guan (Singapore Polytechnic) Factors Affecting Musical Preferences among Young Students: a Singapore Study

· Phillip McIntyre (Newcastle) Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday”

· David Wong (Sheffield, England) Between Pleasure (‘Fun’) and Performance: a Preliminary Study on Music of the Chinese Young People in Sabah, Malaysia

3. Compositions in Context (UH 2)

· Jason Geary (Yale) Mendelssohn’s Antigone and the German Appropriation of the Ancient Greek Civic Ideal

· Jennie Shaw (Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney) At the Crossroads; Schoenberg’s Rilke Settings and the Fragmentation of War

· Chris Wainwright (Adelaide) Haydn, Salomon, and the Surprising London Symphony, Hob. I:94

4. Technology and Music Education (Concert Hall)

· Steve Campbell (James Cook University) Tertiary Curriculum Structures in Music Technology: Integration and Strategies

· Gian-Franco Ricci (Newcastle) Interactivity in an Icon-based Authoring System as Applied to Music Instruction

3:30–4:00 Afternoon Tea (Exhibition Space, University House)

4:00–5:30 Session D
1. Music and Contemporary Tastes (NH1)

· Brydie-Leigh Bartleet (University of Queensland) From Coffee Houses to Executive Suites: an Experiential Approach to Feminist Musicology

· Amy Chan (Australian National University) The West and the Rest

· Barnaby Ralph Beethoven, the Signifier and the Giant Exploding Robots

2. Music and Dance in England and France (NH2)

· Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz (Melbourne) Spectacle, Society, and Sor’s Cendrillon: Composing for the pre-Romantic Ballet

National Committee 2001–2002

Membership Secretary

Committee Members

Website Coordinator

CONTENTS

monday, 3 March 2003