Sydney
     South Australia
     Northern NSW

Sydney Chapter   (Sydney Chapter Contact)

The first six months of the committee's tenure have been busy and successful ones. A large number of lapsed members have renewed their membership, which is always pleasing, and several new members have joined. Word has quickly spread that the Chapter has been reactivated, and events and innovations are coming thick and fast.

The most obvious innovation of the committee is the publication of a newsletter entitled "Articulation". On behalf of the committee, thanks to Terry Clinton, Meredith Connie, Caitlin Rowley and Sulinna Ong for their time and effort in organising this. Another innovation is the institution of a mailing list for regularly updated information on what is going on in Sydney Musicology. If you want to be placed on this mailing list, please email me on dcashman@mail.usyd.edu.au. The committee also hopes to have a website up soon.

The year started out with the Chapter providing some financial support to the Takemitsu symposium. This event brought together some of Australia's and Japan's best-known scholars to talk about Takemitsu on the second anniversary of the composer's death. A showing of the film Kwaidan, for which Takemitsu wrote the score, and a concert of his music were also organised. Congratulations to organisers Lewis Cornwell and Hugh de Ferranti.

On March 28 the Chapter organised a joint presentation of Sally Macarthur's and Sarah Weiss' recently submitted PhDs at the Old Darlington School. Presenting first, Sally talked on 'Feminist Aesthetics in Music: Politics and Practices in Australia', and then Sarah on 'Paradigms and Anomalies: Female Style Genderan and the Aesthetics of Central Javanese Wayang'. This event was well attended and some interesting discussion ensued. It has been decided to continue an occasional lecture series and the next one planned is a composition studies lecture.

The Chapter was also involved in the presentation of a recital of shakuhachi flute music by Riley Lee on May 17. This was reported to have been very well attended.

On August 15, at the Sydney Conservatorium's Australian Technology Park campus, the Chapter will host the 1998 Graduate Music Symposium. With sixteen papers, this promises to be the largest event of its type yet organised in Sydney. Some of Sydney's most established and respected academics will be chairing six sessions on Feminist and Critical Studies, Composition Studies, Popular Music, The Western Canon, Ethnomusicology and Early Music. A web page has been set up for this event and it is at  http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~dcashman/gms.html.

At the end of the year the Chapter proposes to hold a symposium with a wider focus. More details will be forthcoming as we approach this event.

David Cashman, Musicology Unit,
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.
dcashman@mail.usyd.edu.au

South Australia   (South Australian Chapter Contact)

The Chapter's regular meetings have continued this year, although with a late start due to the Festival. They have included a presentation by visiting WA harpsichord and fortepiano specialist Jillian Belbin (an illustrated lecture on the music of J. C. Smith), joint papers by Emeritus Professors David Galliver and Brian Coghlan ('Franz Schubert: A post Centennial Celebration'), papers by Efrosini Gialidis ('At the Source of Nausicaa: An examination of style within Peggy Glanville-Hicks' opera') and Peter Kelsall ('Tonality and modality in the J. S. Bach chorale preludes from the Neumeister Collection'), and at the AGM, Dr Demeter Tsounis presented 'Reflections upon local contemporary research into Greek music. Rebetika music-making in Adelaide - diaspora musical style and identity'. Preparations for both Wagner Symposium and national conference are now well under way (draft programs enclosed); full details, including accommodation, etc. will be made available to members a little later in the year. Warm thanks to all members who proposed papers for the conference.We look forward to seeing you in Adelaide in November.

John A. Phillips

Northern New South Wales   (Northern NSW Chapter Contact)

The most extensive of the Northern NSW Chapter's activities in this half of the year occurred in conjunction with the Music Department's post-graduate school, from June 26-29. With members and postgraduates attending from as far afield as Adelaide to Brisbane, the residential school resembled a mini-conference, with papers from all of our members as well as recitals from Tony Ward (guitar), Simon Martyn-Ellis (lute) and Ana-Maria Gorski-Damaceno (Brazilian piano music). A special guest paper (from UNE Classics Department) was given by Anna Silvas, entitled 'Hildegard von Bingen and Jutta of Sponheim'. Anna's book on Hildegard is to be published this year by the Belgian publisher Brepols, and the paper introduced us to some of the intriguing biographical evidence. Papers by members included Ann Ghandar on 'Tuning: Anne Boyd's Book of the Bells', Jason Stoessel's analysis of a 14th century French chanson 'Sonorities, dissonance treatment and tonal behaviour in Jacob de Senleches' Je me merveil'; Andrew Alter on 'Power and Response: Music as the Vehicle to a different Realm'; and Rosalind Halton on issues of manuscript research relating to her work on Alessandro Scarlatti, dealing especially with the different types of discovery that may be made during an 'on the spot' inspection, compared with those made while collating the material back home in Australia.

A number of inter-disciplinary projects underway at UNE provoked particular interest, including Alison Tucker's work on processes in listening to music and style recognition, bridging the disciplines of Music and Psychology, which she outlined in a lucid exposition of the theory of 'connectionism', dealing along the way with the inadequacies of much of what is taught within the scope of 'music appreciation' courses. Also crossing Music and Psychology is the work of Jan West, whose work on 'Music and Memory' was illustrated vividly by a video of two of her piano students acting a piano duet metaphorically as right and left brain.

Barry MacDonald's work on the folk music of the New England area - a joint History and Music project - was also represented in his discussion 'Issues surrounding the relationship between fieldwork and theory', and there was lively discussion also arising from papers by Tony Lewis ('Rhythmic Orientation and Rhythmic ambiguity in Dagbamba Drumming'), Simon Martyn-Ellis ('So what is stile recitativo anyway?'), Justin Filippini ('A Canon of Melanesian Music'), and Steven Campbell (techniques used in his most recent electronic composition). Steven's PhD has recently been approved, making him the Department's first doctoral graduate in composition.

As if all this was not enough, all present contributed to a discussion on the topic 'When does performance count as research?'. When research in music has outcomes other than published papers about a musical subject, how do we evaluate the work produced by the research? Maybe the recent publication Research in the Creative Arts (Dennis Strand, just received) will make an impact on the way funding bodies regard this problem, but it seems to be an ongoing one.

Rosalind Halton