— CHAPTER REPORTS —

Hunter

In The Hunter Chapter news for this period we have more matters of life and death to report than of musicological meetings, although plans for future activities are underway. First, there has been a change of office-bearers, with the following elected at the Chapter AGM on 17 June, 2005:

                President: Rosalind Halton

                Secretary: Greg Smith

                Treasurer: Leanne Power

         In March 2005 members of the MSA Hunter Chapter, the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music, and the Newcastle music community were shocked to learn of the death in a road accident of David Jones, for many years Lecturer in Music at Newcastle Conservatorium.

         A brilliant and committed teacher, and noted researcher on the music of Nigel Butterley, David is greatly missed at the Conservatorium. In his address on the occasion of a Memorial concert in honour of David’s work, Professor Robert Constable made the following observations:

In his dealings with students and staff and with the wider musical community, David was inexhaustible in his efforts. You have to be inexhaustible in music education in this country; always there is too little money and resources and it’s no accident that the best music teachers devote huge numbers of hours to the task, not just in face to face teaching but in the administration, the essential follow-up of that teaching. David would work a 70 hour week most weeks of the year and most of that for this university. He was a natural and keen administrator and his systems were always reliable and foolproof. And he loved seeing administrative things work as a result of his efforts, particularly when they would benefit the students and staff.

         David’s Ph.D. thesis on Nigel Butterley’s music was close to completion, and it is planned to submit it posthumously. A recent tribute in the form of a musical, Dreamer or Drifter, composed by Greg Smith to a libretto by 3rd year student Suzanne Daoud, was performed on September 1 in the Newcastle Conservatorium—a humorous and fitting tribute to a witty, generous, and greatly missed friend.

Rosalind Halton

Northern New South Wales

Although planning the 2006 National Conference of the MSA has consumed much of the energies of the chapter’s membership, two successful meetings were held this year. On 20 April Christina Whitley, guest speaker and Ph.D. candidate at UNE, gave an entertaining account of early colonial piano music in her paper entitled “An Overview of piano music and composers in Colonial Sydney: 1840–1890.” Highlights of Christina’s presentation include group participation in a performance of Frederick Ellard’s Volunteer March depicting the “Battle of the Bull” in Sydney’s Domain. On 17 August chapter member Mary Buck presented a paper entitled “Absolutism and the Imagination; Hobbes and Descartes on Music and the human condition.” The paper described a possible approach to listening to and understanding music that is founded in the geometry of Hobbes and Descartes. Mary’s paper was well received by members and the general public with a further hour of discussion and debate following the conclusion of the paper.

         The planning for the 2006 National Conference in Armidale, 27 September to 1 October 2006 is well advanced. Already at this early stage, the Planning Committee has been successful in obtaining a substantial grant for the marketing and promotion of the conference from Armidale Dumaresq Council and a sponsorship/delegate discount rate deal with Qantas and QantasLink. The call for papers and proposals for the 2006 Conference, which is entitled “Music as Local Tradition and Regional Practice” can be found towards the end of this Newsletter (see p. 22).

Jason Stoessel
Secretary/Treasurer, NNSW Chapter

Queensland

The MSAQ has had an exciting year so far with a handful of successful local and national events, and a number of local and international symposia coming up on the 2005 calendar.

         On April 16/17, the MSAQ co-hosted a two-day symposium, titled “Celebration, Appropriation, or Reconciliation: Two hundred Years of Musical Encounters on Australian Soil,” with Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre (QCRC) at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane. This symposium was part of QCRC’s project “Encounters: Meetings in Australian Music,” which critically traced the interaction between indigenous and European-based music from 1804 to 2004 with performances of over 60 rarely heard works, film screenings, the symposium, and a unique collection of essays on the topic, still available from Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University.

         On September 11, MSAQ will present its annual student symposium at the University of Queensland and celebrate the launch of the MSA National Workshop 2003 book proceedings, entitled Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance, edited by MSAQ members Liz Mackinlay, Sam Owens and Denis Collins (see report on the symposium, p. 9, and release notice, p. 24 of this Newsletter).

         From 10 to 13 November, the VIIth International Symposium Cultural Diversity in Music Education (CDIME) will also be held in Brisbane. Over the past twelve years, this conference has become a lively and in-depth platform for debate between practice and academia in this field. A number of MSA members will be participating in the discussions with national and international practi­tioners and scholars on issues such as methodology, context and appropriation in a rapidly expanding area of activities and study. For further information see www.gu.edu.au/centre/qcrc/cdime/

         MSAQ encourages all members of the society to join us for these stimulating events.

Huib Schippers (MSAQ President),
Brydie-Leigh Bartleet (MSAQ Secretary)

South Australia

The SA Chapter has continued its regular seminars held in association with the Elder School of Music at the University of Adelaide. Graham Strahle began the year on 22 March, presenting a thought-provoking paper entitled “Is Classical Music Dead?” Important issues were raised that sparked lively debate. On 19 April, MSASA president Jula Szuster presented a further chapter of her research into music in colonial Adelaide in a paper entitled “Music in 1865: a snapshot of cultural life in Adelaide, not seen in Dureyea’s Panorama.” The paper outlined the extensive musical activity that went on in Adelaide the year in which the well-known photographic panorama of the young city was taken.

         A paper entitled “Negotiating Tradition into the 21st Century: Miki and the Japanese Koto” was given on 24 May by Kimi Coaldrake. It examined Minoru Miki’s Autumn Fantasy in order to understand the way Miki in particular and performers of Japanese instruments more generally address musical and cultural issues to create a new Japanese music that bridges the gap between Japanese musical practice and Western forms. On 21 June, Helen Rusak discussed Elena Kats-Chernin's music theatre composition, Mr Barbecue, in her paper entitled “‘Meat, Metal and Fire’—a masculinist challenge,” which dealt with the operation of a distinctly feminine aesthetic in the work and its links with the expression of masculine tribalism in the Australian barbecue ritual.

         Visiting UK scholar and pianist Roy Howat gave his lecture-demonstration “Updating Debussy Editions” for MSASA on 19 July. Roy outlined a number of problems he had encountered in the editing of Debussy’s piano music for the new Durand-BMG edition and their significance for the philosophy of music editing. Finally, on 23 August, Masters Student Kathryn Hardwick-Franco gave her paper on the workings and significance of music cultures in isolated migrant communities, “Music and identity maintenance for Slovenian people in remote Port Lincoln, South Australia.”

         With a break for the Sydney conference this month, MSASA’s seminar series continues in October.

                 John Phillips
Secretary, SA Chapter

 

Sydney

During the last six month Chapter members have been invited to attend guest lectures by Richard Moyle in April and John Rink in August as well as to a special symposium entitled Perception and Performance of Music. The first was organized by PARADISEC and the Sydney Conservatorium. The other two by the School of Music and Music Education of UNSW and the Australian Music Psychology Society.

         In August we also got together for the annual Graduate Student Symposium which was a particularly successful event with around twenty participants and eight interesting papers on diverse topics indicating the breath and scope of student research undertaken at various Sydney-based institutions. Some of these will be presented at the National Conference at which the Chapter will offer a prize of $250 for the best student paper/presentation. Details of the prize have been announced via the Electronic News Bulletin (ENB) and are also available as part of the Conference information on the Society’s internet site. We wish the very best to all contestants.

Names of presenters and their papers at the Graduate Student Symposium

·  Becky Shepherd: Representations of musical creativity and Radiohead’s OK Computer

·  Megan Evans: Whose line is it anyway? – Ownership issues in popular song recording

·  Alex Pozniak: Music in a Non-Musical Way: Merzbow’s Compositional Use of Noise

·  Sarah Penicka: Stravinsky, Maritain and the ideal Christian artifex

·  Christina Abdul-Karim: The Referential Use of Greek Byzantine Chant in the Music of John Tavener, Ivan Moody, Michael Adamis and Christos Hatzis

·  Stephen Loy: Music, Activism, and Tradition; Louis Andriessen’s Nine Symphonies of Beethoven

·  Justin White: The Use of Latin Rhetoric in Baroque Compositional Technique

·  Emily Pollnitz: Romancing the Australian Parlour: Passion, Patriarchy and Genteel Love Songs, 1880–1900

Dorottya Fabian
Secretary, Sydney Chapter

A report on the Graduate Student Symposium will be found on p. 8 of this Newsletter.

Victoria

A very successful study day was held at the ACU on Tuesday, 24 May. The presenters were as follows:

·    Julia Cornwell (Monash University) Character Transitions from Play to Opera in The Crucible

·    Paul Watt (Sydney Conservatorium) French Connections in the Development of Ernest Newman’s Scientific Criticism

·    Julie Waters (Monash University) Models of Musical Socialist Realism 1948–1953 and Amirov’s Symphonic Mughams

·    Erin McNamara (Victorian College of the Arts) Trombone Performance: Bach, Suite No 1 in G major for cello

·    Christine Mercer (ACU National) “Encounters: Meetings in Australian Music:” 12–17 April 2005, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

·    Polly Christie (ACU National) The roles female choral conductors play in contemporary Melbourne

·    Andrew Mathers (Monash University) Commonalities in Expressive Movement Theories and their Relevance to Expressive Conducting

·    Karen Heath (Monash University) The Synchronicity of Music and Gesture: Performance Strategies of Choreographic Music.

         Each of the papers provoked lively discussion.

         On Monday 25 July, Roy Howat gave an informative and fascinating lecture-recital entitled “Debussy’s Preludes Reconsidered.” This well-attended event took place at ACU National and was a great success, both musically and socially.

         On September 3 at Cecil Street Studio, Fitzroy, Brigid Burke gave a lecture-recital entitled “Composition, Contemporary Techniques and the Clarinet.” Although not well attended it was nevertheless a stimulating event.

         The Chapter Conference will take place on Friday and Saturday, 11 and 12 November. Shirley Trembath and Craig de Wilde have agreed to adjudicate the musicology prize. Venue, Recital Hall, ACU for Friday, and Early Music Centre, Melbourne University for Saturday.

         The closing date for papers is 3 October 2005.

Ian Burk
Secretary, Victorian Chapter

— Conference Reports —

MSA Sydney Chapter Graduate Student Symposium

Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Saturday, 27 August

 

The eight papers presented at the Graduate Student Symposium, organised by the Sydney Chapter of the MSA, varied widely in content and subject matter, but all were received enthusiastically by the crowd mainly from UNSW and Sydney University. The day started with a look at the world of rock and popular music. Becky Shepherd examined representations of musical creativity through Radiohead’s seminal album “OK Computer” and was followed by my own presentation on ownership issues in popular song recording. The first session finished with Alex Pozniak’s discussion of Japanese artist Merzbow’s compos­itional use of noise.

         After a brief coffee and cake break, the second session turned to composition and analysis of various twentieth century composers. Sarah Penicka looked at the relationship between Jacques Maritain and Igor Stravinsky and the importance of Christian belief in the works of each. The influence of religion was also taken up by Christina Abdul-Karim in her discussion of the referential use of Greek Byzantine chant in the music of John Tavener, Ivan Moody, Michael Adamis and Christos Hazis. Stephen Loy then turned the focus from religion to politics by examining Louis Andriessen’s “Nine Symphonies of Beethoven” in the context of his social and political motivations.

         After more social interaction during lunch, the final session took a more historical approach, beginning with a discussion of the use of rhetoric in Baroque compositional technique by Justin White, followed by Emily Pollnitz’s look at the social functions of the genteel parlour song in Australia of the late nineteenth century. Her presentation included some live performances that were definitely appreciated by all.

         The papers presented were drawn from recently completed theses, works in progress and draft versions of papers for the upcoming MSA conference. The mood was supportive and relaxed and the general consensus was that a good time was had by all. As there are plans underway to make this day a regular feature of the Sydney Chapter’s calendar I firmly encourage those students who were unable to participate to make the effort to get involved next time: not only is it a good forum to discuss your ideas, but you are also able to meet fellow researchers and see what everyone else is working on, increasing the sense of community that is always there for support.

Megan Evans
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney

 

MSA Queensland Chapter Annual Student Symposium
and Members’ Day

University of Queensland, 11 September 2005

 

Seven papers were presented at this year’s symposium by undergraduate and postgraduate students on themes broadly based on music’s role and function in diverse contexts. Now a well-established annual event of the Queensland chapter, the lively mix of research interests and the congenial atmosphere fostered by the occasion provide young and emerging music researchers in Queensland with valuable professional experience. The Gordon Spearritt Prize for best student paper is an especially important aspect of the symposium, and the Chapter was privileged to have had Gordon attend the event and present the prize to this year’s winner, Jim Chapman, a Ph.D. student at Queensland University of Technology, for a well-paced and engaging paper entitled “An Approach to the Analysis of Syncretic Compositions in a European/African Cross-Cultural Setting.” This year’s judges, Felicity Baker and Don Lebler provided excellent feedback to participants on the rigours and challenges involved in presentations at professional meetings. The other speakers discussed wide-ranging themes from the social and professional conditions surrounding music among Indigenous Australians, the Queensland Youth Orchestra, Afghani musicians and Cuban song-writers to the variegated creative landscape of a concept known as Systems Thinking, and the mix of influences at work in Japanese video game music of the early 1990s. This year’s symposium was also the occasion of the launch, by MSAQ’s president, Huib Schippers, of Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance, a volume of essays arising from the 2003 MSA National Workshop held at the University of Queensland, edited by Elizabeth Mackinlay, Denis Collins and Samantha Owens and published by Cambridge Scholars Press. Finally, the excellent organisational skills of MSAQ’s Secretary, Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, ensured the smooth running of the symposium throughout the day.

Denis Collins

 

 

— Forthcoming conferences —

2005 National Conference

 

The 28th National Conference of the MSA, co-hosted by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney and the Sydney Chapter of the Musicological Society of Australia, will be held from Wednesday, 28 September to Saturday, 1 October 2005 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

                Featuring over one hundred events, including individual paper presentations, panel sessions, lecture recitals, workshops and study group meetings, the conference is based around the theme of “Music and Social Justice,” although papers on a wide range of topics will be presented. Session themes include Aboriginal song and country; ethical and social justice issues in opera; copyright and ownership; empirical research in music performance, production and construction of contemporary culture; music and social justice projects in the community; music’s role in the industrial and social revolutions of nineteenth century England; song and society; social justice in south-east Asia and the Pacific; music and war; interpretations of Sculthorpe’s music; music and social justice in Australian colonial history; women’s music, feminism and social justice; and contemporary Australian music projects for social justice.

         Plenary session speakers include Dr Mandawuy Yunupingu, who will speak on social justice issues in the music of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, Dr Ian Cross, who will present a keynote address on music and social being, and Associate Professor Guthrie Ramsey, who will present the Alfred Hook Lecture on the music of jazz pianist Bud Powell. Lecture recitals feature musical settings of Rudyard Kipling’s verse performed by baritone Michael Halliwell and pianist David Miller; the social justice poetry and songs of the late Denis Kevans, performed by Sonia Bennett; a discussion of the Latin American New Song movement, with performances by Sue Monk and Justo Diaz; works by William Barton and Sculthorpe performed by didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton and a Conservatorium student string quartet; and a discussion and performance by composer and pianist Benjamin Carson of the piano music of Fred Rzewski, Rick Burkhardt, Ben Carson and others. A closing discussion on music and social change will include plenary session speakers William Barton, Ian Cross, Guthrie Ramsey and other invited panellists.

         We hope you will make the most of other events on offer. In particular, delegates and their guests are invited to attend the Friday evening conference dinner, which will be held at the Imperial Peking Harbourside Restaurant at Circular Quay West, a pleasant twenty-minute walk from the Conservatorium. Enjoy the Imperial’s banquet dinner while you take in the restaurant’s magnificent views of Sydney Harbour and, after dinner, dance to the music of the Conservatorium’s student jazz trio! Dinner tickets ($60 each) are available in advance for delegates and their guests by booking them on the conference registration form, or they can be purchased at the conference registration desk. Numbers are limited, so please book your tickets early to avoid disappointment!

         Another special event is the Hook Lecture reception at the Conserva­torium, which will also feature book launches by Society members and which will be followed by the Hook Lecture. Gleebooks will be displaying a selection of items for purchase throughout the conference in the Conservatorium Atrium and, for those of you who remain in Sydney on the Sunday, discount tickets are available for the Conservatorium’s “Sensational Sunday” concert.

         Complimentary morning and afternoon teas will be provided in the Conservatorium Atrium during the conference and, if you need a break from conference events, a stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens behind the Conservatorium to Government House, the Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay is highly recommended.

         Conference information and accommodation, an updated draft program and registration form are available from the Society’s website (follow the links to Conferences and Events) or from the conference convenors,

conference@msa.org.au. Conference and Day registrations will also be available each day of the conference at the conference registration desk. A draft of the conference program, current as of September 12, follows.

         See you in Sydney!

Jennie Shaw
Conference co-convenor

Music and Social Justice 

28th National Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia

Presented jointly with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music,

The University of Sydney

Wednesday 28 September – Saturday 1 October 2005

Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Macquarie Street, Sydney

 

Draft Program as of 12 September 2005

 

Wednesday, 28 September

 

9.30 am – 10.15 am Opening Session (Recital Hall East); Chair: Jennie Shaw

         Acknowledgement of Country: Jeff Dunn

         University Welcome: Justice Kim Santow, Chancellor, The University of Sydney

         Sydney Conservatorium of Music Welcome: Kim Walker, Dean, Sydney Conservatorium of Music

 

10.15 am – 11.00 am: Morning break. Complimentary refreshments provided by The University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

11.00 am – 12.00 pm: Plenary Session I (Recital Hall East); Chair: Allan Marett; Discussant: Aaron Corn

         Mandawuy Yunupingu, Yothu Yindi Foundation. Issues of Social Justice in the Music of Yothu Yindi

 

12.00 pm – 2.00 pm: Lunch break, lecture recital and committee meetings

 

12.00 pm – 1.00 pm: Renegotiating Musicology Workshop Meeting (Room 2174); Chair: Aaron Corn

 

1.00 pm – 2.00 pm: Lecture Recital I (Recital Hall West); Chair: Kerry Murphy

         Michael Halliwell, The University of Sydney. Rudyard Kipling: Bard of Empire or dangerous outsider?

                                Baritone: Michael Halliwell; piano: David Miller

 

2.00 pm – 4.00 pm: Parallel Sessions 1a–1d

 

Session 1a. Aboriginal Song and Country (Recital Hall East); Chair: Stephen Knopoff

         Katelyn Barney, The University of Queensland. “We’re women we fight for freedom”: Examining how Indigenous Australian women use contemporary music as a vehicle for expressing social justice

         Lysbeth Ford, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, and Frank Dumoo, Northern Territory. Songs and Country

         Margaret Gummow, Canberra, Songs and social justice in Aboriginal Australia: Sing-you-down songs from South Eastern Australia

         Sally Treloyn, The University of Sydney. “Out of the life of the Wanjina”: junba composition/performance through musical analysis

 

Session 1b. Opera I: Carmen and Colonialism (Recital Hall West); Chair: Peter McCallum

         Kerry Murphy, University of Melbourne. Carmen “the limpidezza of sunny lands”

         Elizabeth Kertesz, University of Melbourne. Bringing Carmen home: National identity and early Spanish productions of Bizet's opera

         Michael Christoforidis, University of Melbourne. Carmen's stepdaughters: Spanish entertainers and fin-de-siècle representations of Bizet's opera

 

Session 1c. The Politicisation of Modernism (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Richard Toop

         Linda Kouvaras, University of Melbourne. Exploring the "spaces between the notes": The postmodern embodying of the string quartet

         David Bennett, University of Melbourne. Kronos, modernism and the politics of world music

         Stephen Loy, The University of Sydney. Music, activism, and tradition; Louis Andriessen’s Nine Symphonies of Beethoven

         Cecilia Sun, The University of Sydney. Experimenting with politics: Frederic Rzewski’s Attica pieces

 

Session 1d. Japan: Tradition and Modernity (Room 2174); Chair: Lewis Cornwell

         Benjamin Carson, University of California, Santa Cruz. The significance of modernity in musicologies of Osaka and London

         Kimi Coaldrake, The University of Adelaide. Miki’s Autumn Fantasy: Negotiating tradition within contemporary compositional practice.

         Hugh de Ferranti, The University of New England. Taiko Dreaming: Japanese drumming for Australians

         Marika Leininger-Ogawa, The University of Adelaide. Shunsuke’s space: social and musical interaction in a Tokyo live house

 

4.00 pm – 4.30 pm: Afternoon break. Complimentary refreshments provided by The University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

4.30 pm – 6.30 pm: Parallel Sessions 2a–2c

 

Session 2a. National Recording Project Panel (Recital Hall East); Chair: Mandawuy Yunupingu

         Linda Barwick, The University of Sydney. Digital repositories of minority languages and musics: Implications for research practice

         Aaron Corn, The University of Sydney. There is no point admiring the flowers if the roots are starving

         Neparrnga Gumbala, Galiwin'ku Knowledge Centre and University of Melbourne. The role of knowledge centres in Building the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia

         Allan Marett, The University of Sydney. Towards a National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia

 

Session 2b. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Studies (Recital Hall West); Chair: John Phillips

         Mary Buck, The University of New England. Absolutism and the imagination: Descartes and Hobbes on music and the human condition

         Jennifer Cable, University of Richmond. On the pleasures of the town: An Englishman responds to the influence of Italian opera on the English stage

         Neal Peres da Costa, The University of Sydney. Doing justice to Brahms: the Sonata for cello and piano Op. 38 as it might have been performed by Brahms and his circle

 

Session 2c. Copyright, Ownership and Music Technology (Room 2174); Chair: David Bennett

         David Carter, Griffith University. The day the Net turned Grey: Sampling, copyright law and civil disobedience

         Megan Evans, The University of Sydney. Whose line is it anyway? Ownership issues in popular song recording

         Bruce Johnson, The University of New South Wales. The right to bear arms? Music as Lethal Weapon

 

6.30 pm – 7.30 pm: MSA National Committee Meeting (Room 2135); Chair: Victoria Rogers

 

 

Thursday, 29 September

 

9.00 am – 11.00 am: Parallel Sessions 3a–3d

 

Session 3a. Empirical Research in Music Performance I (Recital Hall East); Chair: Dianna Kenny

         Dianna Kenny and Helen Mitchell, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. Acoustic and perceptual appraisal of vocal gestures in the female classical voice

         Thomas Millhouse and Franz Clement, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. Observations of sung and spoken vowels in the acoustic-auditory domain

         Lynda Moorcroft, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. How do you rate? Controlling vibrato rate in the singing voice

         Elizabeth Willis and Dianna Kenny, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. Adolescent voice: A time of change

 

Session 3b. Contemporary Culture: Production and Construction (Recital Hall West); Chair: Guthrie Ramsey

         Charles Fairchild, The University of Sydney. The grinding gears of a neo-liberal state: Community radio and local cultural production

         Aline Scott-Maxwell, Monash University. Kamahl: Otherness and ordinariness within the mainstream

         Peter Tregear, Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. Musical decadence and degeneracy in popular cinema

         Tony Mitchell, University of Technology, Sydney. Australian hip hop, pedagogy, epistemology and social justice

 

Session 3c. Opera II: Ethical and Social Issues (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Nicholas Routley

         Michael Ewans, The University of Newcastle. Do Janácek's operas empower women?

         Mary Ingraham, University of Alberta. Beyond the ‘Cultural Cringe’: Opera in Canada, 1950–1967

         Michael Halliwell, The University of Sydney. Viva la liberta: opera and the law

 

Session 3d. Dualism, Humanism and Sonorism in Recent Music (Room 2174); Chair: Christine Logan

         Kheng Koay, National University of Singapore. Dualism and unification in Sofia Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2

         Marguerite Boland, Canberra. Themes of humanism in Elliott Carter’s compositional aesthetic

         Anya Maslowiec, The University of Sydney. The Polish avant-garde and the birth of ‘sonorism’ considered against the background of political and cultural events

 

11.00 am – 11.30 am: Morning break. Complimentary refreshments provided by the University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

11.30 am – 12.30 pm: Parallel Sessions 4a–4d

 

Session 4a. Empirical Research in Music Performance II (Recital Hall East); Chair: Emery Schubert

         Mara Kiek, Kate Reid, Jonathon Livesey, Dianna Kenny, Pamela Davis, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. The power of the Bulgarian singing voice

         Gemma Turner, Dianna Kenny and Jenny Alison, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. The relationship between spontaneous physical movements and vocal intensity In western contemporary popular singing styles

 

Session 4b. Issues in Music Education (Recital Hall West); Chair: Kathy Marsh

         Nathan Scott, The University of Newcastle. Music, technology and education: The challenges of teaching technology

Jaime Alberts, Boston Conservatory. Sing the revolution: Why music education can and should help change the world

 

Session 4c. Opera III: Opera and Anti-Semitism (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Peter Tregear

         John Phillips, Adelaide. Composing hatred? Wagner and antisemitism

         Joseph Toltz, The University of Sydney. Music, an active tool of deception? The case of Brundibar in Terezin

 

Session 4d. Australian Music in the Twentieth Century I (Room 2174); Chair: Victoria Rogers

         Kate Bowan, Australian National University. “… that keen interest we have for the strange and the rare…”: The musical fantasy world of Hooper Brewster-Jones

         David Symons, The University of Western Australia. Before Corroboree: Fresh Perspectives on the Early Works of John Antill

 

12.30 pm – 2.00 pm: Lunch break, lecture recitals and committee meetings

 

1.00 pm – 2.00 pm: Lecture Recital II (Recital Hall West); Chair: Charles Fairchild

         Sonia Bennett, Sydney. Mend the Torn Air (In memoriam Denis Kevans)

             Voice and guitar: Sonia Bennett

 

1.00 pm – 2.00 pm: Music and Technology Study Group – Open Meeting (Room 2174); Chair: Gavin Carfoot

 

2.00 pm – 4.00 pm: Parallel Sessions 5a–5d

 

Session 5a. Empirical Research in Music Performance III (Recital Hall East); Chair: Ian Cross

         Jennifer Barnes, Jennifer Oates and Michael Halliwell, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. The power of the operatic soprano voice

         Joanne Callinan-Robertson and Dianna Kenny, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. An investigation of the Marchesi pedagogical model of head tone

         Sam Ferguson, Andrew Vande Moere and Densil Cabrera, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. Seeing your performance: Enhancing visual feedback technology for musicians with information visualisation

 

Session 5b. Opera III Panel Session: Opera and Social Justice: Composers’ Perspectives (Recital Hall West); Chair: Michael Ewans

         Andrew Schultz, University of Wollongong. "Child don't you study revenge": Voice in Black River

         Alan John, Sydney. Opera, the Opera House, and the elite

         Nicholas Routley, The University of Sydney. How to write Mahabharata: the question of refugees

         Drew Crawford, The University of Sydney. The Eugene Goossens scandal and social stigma

 

Session 5c. Music and Social Justice Community Projects (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Peter Dunbar-Hall

         Martin Jarvis, Charles Darwin University. Social justice flows from music in the community: A practical example in the Northern Territory

         Richard Petkovic, Sydney. The beat of Blacktown: Finding, creating with, showcasing and empowering the marginalised

         Eric Usner. New York University. Towards a pedagogy of witnessing: Ethnomusicology, service learning and social justice

 

Session 5d. Australian Music in the Twentieth Century II (Room 2174); Chair: David Symons

         Helen English, The University of Newcastle. Peggy Glanville-Hicks: music and text

         Christine Logan and Cherie Watters-Cowan, The University of New South Wales. Concerns of a twentieth century Australian composer: Margaret Sutherland’s lectures, other writings and private correspondence

 

4.00 pm – 4.30 pm: Afternoon break. Complimentary refreshments provided by The University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

4.30 pm – 5.30 pm: Parallel Sessions 6a–6c

 

Session 6a. Empirical Research in Music Performance IV (Recital Hall East); Chair: Dorottya Fabian; Respondent: Dianna Kenny

         Margaret Osborne, Dianna Kenny and John Cooksey, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. Cognitive-behavioural intervention for performance anxiety in gifted adolescent musicians

         Claire Kahn and Dianna Kenny, ACARMP, The University of Sydney. Enhancing the perception of emotion in music performance: A study of one musician’s attempt to develop the emotional communication of their music performance

 

Session 6b. The State, Church and Social Justice (Recital Hall West); Chair: Kathleen Nelson

         Kelvin Hastie, Sydney. "Wesley's 'humble poor': Social aspects of Methodist music-making in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

         Bruce Cohen, Humbolt University, Berlin, and University of South Australia. Youth music behaviour and perceived injustices in Berlin

 

Session 6c. Music’s role in the Industrial and Social Revolutions of Nineteenth-Century England (Room 2174); Chair: Elizabeth Kertesz

         Poppy Fay, University of Melbourne. Manchester manufacturers, music and Elizabeth Gaskell's novels of the ‘north’

         Paul Watt, The University of Sydney. The reporting of music in The Speaker (London), 1890–1907

 

5.30 pm – 6.30 pm: Alfred Hook Reception and book launch, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

6.30 pm – 8.00 pm: Plenary Session II: Alfred Hook Lecture (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Anne Boyd

         Guthrie Ramsey, University of Pennsylvania. In Walked Bud: Genius, Genre, and Earl "Bud" Powell's Modern Jazz Challenge

                      Piano: Guthrie Ramsey; bass: Mike Majkowski; drums: Tim Firth

 

Friday, 30 September

 

9.30 am – 11.00 am: Parallel Sessions 7a–7d

 

Session 7a. Song and Society I (Recital Hall East); Chair: Kimi Coaldrake

         Narelle McCoy, Griffith University. Echoes of the banshee: The changing voice of Irish women

         Helen O’Shea, Victoria University of Technology. Playing with gender in the Irish traditional music session

         Timothy Kinsella, University of Washington. “Burning the Flag”: Appropriation, deconstruction, and mockery as sonic resistance to the war in Vietnam

 

Session 7b. Social Justice and Social Change in South East Asia and the Pacific (Recital Hall West); Chair: Aline Scott-Maxwell

         Peter Dunbar-Hall, The University of Sydney. Music and terrorism: an interpretation of musical responses to the Bali bombings

         Kirsty Gillespie, Australian National University. Music and social change in a Highland Papua New Guinea community

         Margaret Kartomi, Monash University. The art of body percussion as a Cross-cultural phenomenon and expression of identity and social change in Aceh

 

Session 7c. Music and War (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Michael Halliwell

         Graham Hair, Glasgow University. The formation of Matyas Seiber’s musical identity in the context of political oppression, war, displacement and exile, and its influence on his approach to the teaching of composition and the transmission of musical values to his students

         Wendy Hiscocks, Australian National University. Music and war: Arthur Benjamin's Symphony

         Christine Mercer, Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy. Private pacifist versus public patriot: Henry Tate’s Great War music

 

Session 7d: Perspectives on Schoenberg and Strauss (Room 2174); Chair: Jennie Shaw

         Allan Walker, Australian National University. Compositional process as metaphor in Schoenberg's “Genesis” Prelude

         Matthew Werley, Magdalen College, University of Oxford. Maria full of (dis)grace? Female agency and Fidelio reception in Richard Strauss’s Friedenstag

         Craig De Wilde, Monash University. Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss and the question of performance justice?

 

11.00 am – 11.30 am: Morning break. Complimentary refreshments provided by the University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

11.30 am – 12.30 pm: Plenary Session III: Keynote Address (Recital Hall West); Chair: Peter McCallum

         Ian Cross, University of Cambridge. Music and Social Being

 

12.30 pm – 2.30 pm: Lunch Break, lecture recitals and committee meetings

 

12.30 pm – 1.30 pm: Lecture Recital 3 (Recital Hall East); Chair: Michael Noone

         Sue Monk, The University of Queensland, and Justo Diaz, University of Western Sydney. The Latin American New Song movement and its effects and achievements

                                Voice and guitar: Sue Monk, Justo Diaz

 

1.30 pm – 2.30 pm: Lecture Recital 4 (Recital Hall West); Chair: Steven Knopoff

         William Barton, Brisbane. An Interaction of Songlines

         Didgeridoo: William Barton; Violin I: Mirabai Peart; Violin II: Sylwia Kowalik; Viola: Annie Beilby; Cello: Heather Hinrichs

 

2.30 pm – 4.00 pm: Parallel Sessions 8a–8d

 

Session 8a. Song and Society II (Recital Hall East); Chair: Michael Noone

         Mark Gregory, Macquarie University. Australian Union Songs: half a century of song for social justice

         Sue Monk, The University of Queensland. What is ‘political song’? Cuban singer-songwriters

 

Session 8b. Interpretations of Peter Sculthorpe’s Music (Recital Hall West); Chair: Linda Kouvaras

         Carolyn Philpott, University of Tasmania. A response to social injustice: Sculthorpe's String Quartet No. 14

         Steven Knopoff, The University of Adelaide. Cross-cultural appropriation, (mis)representation of culture, national voice-finding, institutional injustice, and celebration of indigenous culture: Some thoughts on Aboriginalist orchestral and chamber music in Australia

 

Session 8c. Australian Music projects for social justice (Choral Assembly Hall); Chair: Margaret Kartomi

         Susan Gillett, LaTrobe University. “Flight: Concert for Refugees”: Multi-vocal engagement with the plight of refugees

         Rosemary Richards, Melbourne. The Box Hill Gloria

         James Nightingale, The University of Queensland. Speaking with ‘One Voice’: The Music Council of Australia and the place of music in Australian society

 

Session 8d. Modern Perspectives on Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Texts and Notation (Room 2174); Chair: Alan Maddox

         Kathleen Nelson, The University of Sydney. Recycled and transplanted: The tale of a Medieval manuscript fragment

         Jason Stoessel, The University of New England. A glimpse of the cultural hegemony of the last Carraresi of Padua: revisiting Per quella strada lactea and Inperiale sedendo

         Rosalind Halton, The University of Newcastle. Trickery, poison and the hard hexachord

 

4.00 pm – 4.30 pm: Afternoon break. Complimentary refreshments provided by The University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

4.30 – 6.00 pm: Parallel Sessions 9a–9c

 

Session 9a. Song and Society III: Aspects of Contemporary Popular Music (Recital Hall East); Chair: Craig De Wilde

         Ian Chapman, University of Otago. Dressed to Kill: An interpretation of KISS album covers from the 1970s

         Michael Noone, Australian National University. “I can’t sing”: Cantopop searches for a voice in post-handover Hong Kong

         Adam Chapman, Australian National University. Rock, hip-hop and techno: Harbingers of Social Change in Laos

 

Session 9b. Music and Justice in Australian Colonial History (Recital Hall West); Chair: Diane Collins

         Nicole Forsyth, The University of Newcastle. Mrs Macquarie’s cello and colonial Sydney: Open air gaol or picnic pleasure ground?

         Peter Macfie, University of Tasmania. A fiddler, a juggler, a piper and 2 guitarists: Port Arthur as a penal cultural centre—or, capturing escaped folk traditions in Tasmania

         Alan Maddox, The University of Sydney, and Michael Wearing, The University of New South Wales. Captain Maconochie's seraphine: music, social control and prison reform in the penal colony on Norfolk Island

 

Session 9c. Cultural and Political Responses to Music (Room 2174); Chair: Jason Stoessel

         Rachelle Oberklaid, University of Melbourne. A symbol of the struggle: Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony in wartime United States

         Greg Smith, The University of Newcastle. The effect of cultural climate on Medtner's Piano Quintet

         Jodie Taylor, Griffith University. Giving queer musicology a voice

 

6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Committee meetings

 

6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Indigenous Think-Tank – Open Meeting (Room 2174); Chair: Allan Marett

 

6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: SIMS Wind-up meeting (Room 2135); Chair: Margaret Kartomi

 

7.30 pm Conference Dinner, Imperial Peking Harbourside Restaurant

 

Located at 15 Circular Quay West, The Rocks, Sydney, the 3rd floor bar and dinner area will be open to delegates and guests from 7.00 pm, featuring the jazz trio of Mike Majkowski, bass; Peter Farrar, alto sax; James Waples, drums. Banquet Tickets ($60 each) are available in advance: book on the Conference Registration Form or at the Conference Registration Desk.

 

Saturday, 1 October

 

9.30 am – 11.00 am: Parallel Sessions 10a–10c

 

Session 10a. Music, Justice, Identity (Recital Hall East); Chair: Aaron Corn

         Kathryn Hardwick-Franco, The University of Adelaide. Slovenian folk music in remote Port Lincoln, South Australia and the importance of identity maintenance

         Benita Wolters-Fredlund, University of Toronto. Singing solidarity with the oppressed: Paul Robeson and the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir in concert, 1946–1949

         Frank Murphy, Sydney. Glory Hallelujah?: Red Nichols and his recordings of The Battle Hymn of the Republic from the 1940s

 

Session 10b. The Composer’s Voice (Recital Hall West); Chair: Matthew Hindson

         Anne Boyd, The University of Sydney. Writing the wrongs? Political representation in the music of Anne Boyd: A composer's perspective

         Mary-Anne Kyriakou, The University of Sydney. Post 9/11 media language, political propaganda and the symbolist music-theatre work “The Game Master”

Session 10c. Women’s Music, Feminism and Social Justice (Verbrugghen Hall); Chair: Cecilia Sun

         Amanda Harris, The University of New South Wales. Women composers in a time of social change: Ethel Smyth and Lili Boulanger

         Sally Macarthur, University of Western Sydney. Social justice? The performance of women’s music hits an all-time low

         Heather Feldman, City University New York. “Politics is music—is life!” Ani DiFranco on Post-9/11 feminism

 

11.00 am – 11.30am: Morning break. Complimentary refreshments provided by The University of Sydney Union Music Café, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Atrium

 

11.30 am – 12.30 pm: Panel discussion: Music and Social Change (Recital Hall East); Chair: June Sinclair, Pro-Vice Chancellor, The College of the Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney. Participants will include William Barton, Julian Burnside [tbc], Ian Cross, Neparrnga Gumbala [tbc], Moya Henderson [tbc], Guthrie Ramsey, and Andrew Schultz [tbc]

 

12.30 pm – 2:00 pm: Lunch break, lecture recitals and committee meetings

 

12.30 pm – 1.30 pm: Lecture Recital 5 (Recital Hall West); Chair: Cecilia Sun

         Benjamin Carson, Subjectivity and collectivity in music for the piano: Music of Benjamin Carson, Fredric Rzewski, Rick Burkhardt and others

 

1.00 pm – 2.00 pm: Music, Gender and Sexuality Study Group – Open Meeting (Room 2174); Chair: John Phillips

 

2.00 pm – 4.00 pm (Recital Hall East); Annual General Meeting of the Musicological Society of Australia. Chair: Victoria Rogers, MSA President. MSA members and guests welcome.

 

4.00 pm Conference Close

 

 

 

MSA CONFERENCE 2006

27 September – 1 October 2006

University of New England, Armidale

 

 

Pure inspiration

Four sub-themes to dare creative thought; one main theme to “rule” them all. The Northern New South Wales Chapter is privileged and proud to host the 2006 National Conference at the University of New England, Armidale.

         We are calling for papers and expressions of interest in:

Music as Local Tradition and Regional Practice

Our areas of focus are:

         1.   Music and identity in local/regional practices as distinctive features in old and new music

         2.   Cultural diversity and its responses to national/global policy

         3.   Borders/cross-overs and meeting places: where cultures meet

         4.   Marginalisation/differentiation: to belong or not

         Proposals for free papers are also welcomed.

         The closing date for proposals is 28 April 2006. Please note:

·       Proposals for individual papers should consist of the name(s) and contact details of presenter(s), title of paper and a 250 word abstract. A list of equipment required for the presentation (e.g., CD player, PowerPoint projector) shall accompany proposals. Individual papers shall be approximately 20 minutes in length, allowing for 10 minutes of question time at their conclusion.

·       Proposals for lecture recitals shall consist of the name(s) and contact details of presenter(s), a 250 word abstract, recital program and details of equipment required and supplied by the presenter. The duration of lecture recitals shall be no longer than 40 minutes. Expenses relating to the planning of a performance and hiring of artists and additional equipment will not be considered by the Planning Committee. Proposers of lecture recitals should be prepared to answer any further enquiries by the Program Committee concerning their proposal.

·       Proposals for group sessions on a common topic should consist of the name(s) and contact details of the person co-ordinating the session, names of session presenters, and the title and abstract of each paper to be presented during the session. Group sessions shall have length of no more than 90 minutes, consist of three papers and should allow for at least 10 minutes for questions and discussion after each paper OR half an hour at the conclusion of all papers.

·       Proposals for roundtables directly related to the theme of the conference are welcomed although the number of these are limited and shall be subject to further enquiries from the Program Committee as required.

         Successful applicants will be notified in early June 2006. All presenters must be members of the MSA when presenting their paper.

         Proposals should be mailed to:

                MSA Conference 2006

                School of Music

                University of New England

                ARMIDALE NSW 2351

         Or e-mailed to: conference@msa.org.au (from November 2005 onwards) or jason.stoessel@une.edu.au. For further inquiries, contact the 2006 Conference Conveners:

         Rex Eakins, School of Music, University of New England, ARMIDALE NSW 2351. Phone: 02 6773 6446. E-mail: reakins@metz.une.edu.au

         Jason Stoessel, School of Music, University of New England, ARMIDALE NSW 2351. Phone: 02 6773 6563. E-mail: jason.stoessel@une.edu.au

Jason Stoessel,
Conference co-convenor

 

Musicology Australia Update and Call for Submissions

The arrival of baby Jonathan in May and planning for the Society’s national conference (as well as an interesting twelve-month period of “change manage­ment” at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music) have delayed the appearance of volume 27 of Musicology Australia, but the good news is that both volumes 27 and 28 are in production. Volume 27 should be ready for distribution in November and volume 28 will follow early in the new year.

         Volume 27 features research articles by Janice Stockigt, David Lockett, John Napier, Linda Kouvaras, David Bennett, Nicholas Routley and Rowena Braddock, an invited article by Anthony Seeger, a review article by Linda Kouvaras, and book reviews by Denis Collins, Roger Covell, Craig De Wilde, Peter Dunbar-Hall, Margaret Gummow, Rosalind Halton, Linda Kouvaras, Judith Lochhead, Maria McHale, Jennifer Nevile, and David Symons. Volume 28 will include research articles on Australian Indigenous music and language by Linda Barwick, Lysbeth Ford and Murray Garde as well as essays on American Civil War music by Craig De Wilde and by Deborah Crisp on Chopin’s nocturnes. My thanks go to the contributors (not least of all for their patience), to our referees for, in most cases, returning reports so promptly, and to many others who have generously offered advice and suggestions. I would especially like to single out Assistant Editor Paul Watt and Editorial Advisory Committee members Allan Marett, Sandra McColl, Michael Noone, Alison Tokita, Richard Toop and Stephen Wild, as well as Stephen Blum, Charles Fairchild, Sarah Fuller, Margaret Gummow, Jeffrey Kallberg, Grace Koch, Harold Koch, Allan Marett, Stephanie McCallum, Michael Noone, John Phillips, Simon Powis, John Rink, Nicholas Routley and Michael Walsh.

         Further submissions for volume 28 are currently being peer reviewed, but there is still room for articles in that volume. Submission by email is acceptable but please also provide three printed copies for distribution to referees. We welcome scholarly articles on all aspects of music research. Contributors should follow the Chicago footnote and referencing format adopted in volumes 26 and 27.

         Several book reviews promised to Musicology Australia are still outstanding: the last day for submission of 2000-word reviews for possible inclusion in volume 28 is 15 January 2006. If you cannot make that deadline please contact me so that we can arrange a revised submission date.

         Submissions and items for review should be sent to me at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney C41, NSW 2006 Australia, or to the Society’s PO Box address. Email files and should be sent to editor@msa.org.au.

Jennie Shaw
Editor, Musicology Australia

 

 

— Book Release —

Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance

 

By Elizabeth Mackinlay, Denis Collins and Samantha Owens (eds.).

ISBN: 1-904303-50-1. 367 pp. Cloth. UK: £39.99. US: $79.99.

 

Drawing upon a wide range of scholarly enquiry into early music, queer musicology, ethnomusicology, performance practice, music education and technology, Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance provides a lively forum for the articulation of varied perspectives on the role of music, its interpretation and function in contexts supported by those who practice or experience it.

         The formal and shorter discussion papers included in this scholarly collection were presented at the National Workshop of the Musicological Society of Australia, held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane in October 2003. The themes of aesthetics and experience are central to this publication and each paper engages in a scholarly dialogue on the technical, expressive and embodied aspects of performance. The papers included in this publication bring together the research of a wide community of scholars (e.g., musicologists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and linguists) working in the field of performance studies and collectively reflect the musicological issues being debated in Australia today.

 

— obituary —

Alice Marshall Moyle 1908–2005

 

Honorary life member and former president of the MSA, Alice Moyle passed away this year on 10 April at the age of 96.

 

Alice Marshall Moyle, variously described by her academic colleagues as “the Grand Lady of Australian music research” and “the standard bearer of Aboriginal musicology,” passed away in April in Sydney at the age of 96. Born at Bloemfontein, South Africa, she was deeply impressed, as a small child, by her first encounters with group singing—full-throated choruses of African women singing as they worked outdoors over tubs of washing. She arrived in Australia at the age of four with her parents Margaretta and Ellison Brown.

         While the Browns excelled in business, her mother’s family loved music and scholarship. From her maternal grandfather, a distinguished Presbyterian minister, she learned the words which were to become her mantra, “Be sure of your facts and careful of your inferences.” Alice Moyle was educated in Melbourne and achieved First Class Honours in Music in the leaving Certificate and the Exhibition prize at Fintona Girls’ Grammar School. In 1930 she graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Music in piano and cello and spent a number of years as a private piano teacher and a music journalist.

         In 1933 she married John Murray Moyle, a multi-talented kindred spirit who shared her love of music and ideas, and a family friend from her school days. While her husband served in the RAAF during World War II and for some years afterwards, Alice Moyle continued writing and publishing, at first under the name of Alice Brown. Regular music criticism appeared in Wireless Weekly and the ABC Weekly in Sydney. Her piece on “The Leningrad Symphony” came in Angry Penguins of 1944. Her monograph Know Your Orchestra was published by Cheshire in 1948, and a prophetic article “Why Scoff at Musicology?” appeared in 1950 in Canon.

         Alice Moyle took part in the vigorous post-war intellectual life in Sydney and was attracted to the University of Sydney by the appointments of John Anderson, Professor of Philosophy and Donald Peart, Foundation Professor of Music. In the late 1940s she returned to formal academic studies at the University of Sydney and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) degree in 1954 with a thesis on the music of ancient Greece. At this point in her life Alice Moyle was managing her roles as wife and mother (she and John Moyle had produced two daughters) with that of university student. Although this balancing act is common among women today it was relatively unheard of in the early 1950s. A talk by A.P. Elkin, then Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, during which he played some sound recordings of Aboriginal music, prompted her to undertake a musicological study of these recordings. For this work she was awarded the Master of Arts (Honours) in 1957. From 1960 to 1963 Moyle worked part-time as a Teaching Fellow in the then new Music Department at the University of Sydney.

         Alice Moyle undertook her first field trip to the Northern Territory in 1959, recording Aboriginal songs at Darwin, Ayers Rock and Alice Springs. The trip was encouraged and financed by her husband, John Moyle, editor of the journal Radio and Hobbies in Australia, later published as Electronics Australia, who also built the recording equipment she used during the trip. John Moyle died in 1960. He had become a pioneer in his own field of electronics and sound recording, and in a 1989 Retrospective was described as “one of the best technical journalists this country had known.”

         Alice Moyle’s involvement with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) , now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), began in 1961 at the preliminary conference convened by W.E.H. Stanner. The AIAS was founded as a result of this conference and Alice Moyle was a foundation member. From the very beginning she stressed the importance of the study of Australian Aboriginal music as one of the directions for the new organisation and was instrumental in the setting up of the Sound Archive at the new Institute. She was AIAS Research Fellow from 1964 to 1973, at Sydney, Monash University, Melbourne and later in Canberra. From 1973 she was Research Fellow and later Research Officer at the AIAS in Canberra.

         From the early 1960s, her field trips were sponsored by the AIAS and her major recording trips were undertaken in that decade. In 1962, 1963 and 1964 she went to Arnhem Land, visiting Aboriginal settlements at Darwin, Delissaville, Oenpelli, Milingimbi, Elcho Island Yirrkala, Rose River, Roper River, Beswick, and Angurugu and Umbacumba (on Groote Eylandt). In 1966 she went to North Queensland, recording at Cairns, Yarrabah, Aurukun, Weipa, Wrotham Park, Mitchell River, Doomagee, Mornington Island, Borroloola, and again at Groote Eylandt. In 1967, prompted by her friendship with Ken Hale, the distinguished linguist who was working at the time on Warlpiri language, Moyle recorded at Yuendumu and Alice Springs. In 1968 she went to Arnhem Land and Western Australia, recording at Mandorah, Delissaville, Bagot, Bamyili, Lombadina, Broome, La Grange, Beagle Bay, Derby, Mowanjum, Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Kununurra and Wyndham. In 1969 she organized for a film crew to visit Groote Eylandt to record simultaneous film and sound recordings of Anindilyaugwa and Nunggubuyu performances of music and dance. Dance notations were produced by the Australian choreologist Elphine Allen. During the 1970s her trips were mostly to Groote Eylandt, where she was working on a joint publication with the linguist Judith Stokes. This publication remained unfinished at her retirement. Among the hundreds of musicians she recorded was the late Dinnie McVinnie, a ceremonial song man from Borroloola. His tribal brother, John Moriarty, born in Borroloola and now a member of the Federal Government’s Indigenous Land Council, visited Alice Moyle before she passed away. Speaking at her funeral service John expressed the view that it may be some years before the real significance of her work is widely recognized and fully appreciated In 2000, Stephen Wild from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies told the ABC’s Radio Eye programme that he believed that “her recordings in fact did a great service to the cause of understanding Aboriginal culture, Aboriginal people, and as we would put it today, the cause of reconciliation.”

         One of the early threads of her publication record follows her interest in historical material. In the early 1960s she wrote to all the museums in Australia and to all known collectors of sound recordings enquiring about their holdings of recordings of Aboriginal music. She listened to as many of these as she could, documented them and published the list in her 1966 volume called A Handlist of Field Collections of Recorded Music in Australia and Torres Strait. This was the first attempt to assemble an account of all the recordings of Aboriginal music so far made. At museums in Melbourne and Tasmania she convinced museum staff that recordings made on wax cylinders should be transferred to a more modern medium so that they might be heard on contemporary playback machines. She published articles about Baldwin Spencer’s recordings from central and north Australia, made in 1901 and 1912, and Horace Watson’s of Mrs, Fanny Cochrane Smith, a Tasmanian Aboriginal, made at Hobart in 1903. (She would have been delighted by the recent revival of interest in these Tasmanian recordings. At the recent National Folk Festival in Canberra, 2005, Horace Watson’s great-grandson and Fanny Cochrane Smith’s great-grandson together sang together Bruce Watson’s song called “The Man and the Woman and the Edison Phonograph” about these recordings.)

         Other publications of the 1960s include the first of her LPs: the highly influential five-disc set “Songs of the Northern Territory” and its extended Companion Booklet (1964, 1974), The 1970s saw four more LPs, “Songs from Yarrabah” (1970), “Songs from the Kimberleys” (1977), “Songs from North Queensland” (1977), “Aboriginal Sound Instruments” (1978), all published by the AIAS. “Songs by Young Aborigines” (1973) was published by Ure Smith and The Australian Society for Education Through The Arts as part of a kit entitled The Australian Aboriginal Heritage, and “Aboriginal Music from Australia” was a UNESCO publication. With her usual modesty, Alice Moyle considered that what she wrote about Aboriginal music might well be superseded by later scholarship, but that her recordings would become more precious and more significant as time passes. These published recordings, the accompanying documentation and the articles from the 1960s and 1970s demonstrate the clarity and originality of her work and her thinking. The care and precision with which she tackled this work and wrote about her results are exemplary.

         Alice Moyle’s intense study of Aboriginal music led her to consider not just the music, but the entire performance context. This included the texts of the songs and the dances which accompanied them. She found a way to record spoken versions of song texts and convinced more than a dozen linguists to assist with their notation and translation. An Australian ethnochoreologist interested in documenting dance movements was recruited to assist with the production of simultaneous notations of music and dance.

         Her summation of this work is found in her so far unpublished Ph.D. thesis, “North Australian Music: A Taxonomic Approach to the Study of Aboriginal Song Performances”, presented to Monash University in 1974. A massive three volume work Alice Moyle here draws together her results to that date. Volume I contains the text of the thesis; Volume 2, the maps, music notations and song texts; and Volume 3, the six appendices, song texts notated and translated by linguists, bibliography, supporting papers, and tape recorded examples. She distinguishes northerly and central styles in north Australian Aboriginal music, defining styles in terms of the instrumental accompaniments and the textual and melodic characteristics. The separation is a considerable achievement, since there has been an historical spreading of styles which blurs geographical distinctions. She concludes that her recordings show that the proportion of true northerly song styles diminishes in a line from north to south. She suggests that the northerly styles heard in the centre have spread from the north fairly recently and that central styles heard in the north probably reached there with the great cults which spread from the south over a much more extended period. This work, and her conclusions, have not been challenged.

         Alice Moyle’s work has included the documentation of Aboriginal sound instruments, the history of Aboriginal music and dance through film, field recordings, archaeo-musicology, analysis, taxonomy, and the cataloguing and indexing of ethno-musicological material held in the Institute.

         The influence of her husband can be seen in Alice Moyle’s keen interest in and embracing of new technology. The AIAS lent up-to-date sound recording equipment for her field trips and she was always conscious of the advantages of each new machine. In the 1960s she was experimenting with computer generated indexes. Her “Computerised Index of Australian Aboriginal Songs Words”, not published, but deposited in the AIAS Library dates from 1973 and there are later publications with Grace Koch : “Computerised Cataloguing of Field-Recorded Music” and the “Computerised Index of Aboriginal Songs: Cape York Area.” Her use of Charles Seeger’s melograph in 1972 is a further example. Her interest in preservation and arrangement and description of sound recordings led her to become an active member of the International Association of Sound Archives, participating in the Cataloguing Committee and presenting papers in Cambridge, UK and Budapest.

         Moyle’s concern with the level of ignorance about Australian Aboriginal people and their music led to her working constantly at the dissemination of information. She prepared an educational kit to be used in primary schools which included books, sound recordings and videos. An abbreviated but still enormously useful version was eventually published by Monash University Education Faculty. Her many published general accounts of Aboriginal music and her constantly updated bibliographies attest to this determination to make material available. Still an influential summary are her articles for the 1980 edition of “The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians” in which she gives a general account of Aboriginal music in the north of Australia. A project conceived by Moyle, unfinished at her retirement, but being continued by the Centre for Studies in Australian music at Melbourne University is a series of 40 compact disks documenting Australia’s sound heritage.

         Alice Moyle was present at the births of the new discipline of ethnomusicology and the new field of Australian Aboriginal music. She was in written contact with scholars around the world who had similar interests. She was one of the first members of the Society for Ethnomusicology and an early supporter of the International Council for Traditional Music, assisting in the formation of an Australian branch. Moyle was one of only two Honorary Members of the ICTM. An idealistic proponent of musicology (in which she included ethnomusicology) she was influential in the formation of the Musicological Society of Australia and served as its president in 1982–83. Conscious of the small and embattled nature of the discipline in Australia, she was a strong opponent of the move to separate the ethnomusicologists from the musicologists in Australia. This move continues to be resisted, and the result is the still admired wide ranging scope of musicology in Australia. Late in her career Alice Moyle prepared an article for inclusion in a Festschrift organized for her and published in 1984. In this article she speaks very feelingly about the necessity for researchers to have double responsibilities: to the disciplines they are working in with their requirements of consistency, verification and analysis, and to the people whose music is being investigated.

         Moyle became a Member of the Order of Australia – General Division on Australia Day 1977, was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities on 4 November 1994, and received a degree of Doctor of Music (honoris causa) from the University of Sydney in 1989 and another from the University of Melbourne in 1995.

         In person, Alice Moyle was charming, modest and full of fun. Her quiet disposition hid a steeliness which enabled her to continue her often ground-breaking work for forty or so years. She was a staunch supporter of musicology in Australia and offered assistance, encouragement and advice to many Aust­ralian and overseas scholars. She was both a mentor to those coming after her and an inspiration to women whose career highlights arrive in their mature years. “Life begins at 50,” she told her daughters “and my most creative work was done in my sixties.” She will be greatly missed. She is survived by her younger sister Dorothy, her daughters Josephine and Carolyn, and their families.

         For a complete listing of her publications held by the AIATSIS Library see Mura® online catalogue, , and for her audiovisual material the Audio­visual Archives. The AIAS, now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Studies, has recently included on the website a list of the contents of the MS3501 Alice Moyle Collection. A website for her is also planned.

Jill Stubington, Grace Koch and Carolyn Lowry

ISSN 0155-0543