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MSA Home > Publications > Newsletter 50
Newsletter No. 50 (February 1999)
Musicological Society of Australia Inc
1998
Annual General Meeting - 29 November 1998
Obituary:
Naomi Cumming (1960-1999)
Chapter
Reports
Conference
Reports and Notices
Miscellaneous
Notices
No. 50 February 1999
ISSN 0155-0543
Musicological Society of Australia
National Committee 1998–1999:
President: Craig De Wilde (Vic)
Secretary: John A. Phillips (SA)
Treasurer: Jennie Shaw (SA)
Past President: Stephen Wild (ACT)
Ex Officio IMS: Margaret Kartomi (Vic)
Ex Officio ICTM: Allan Marett (Syd)
Committee Members:
Kimi Coaldrake (SA)
Anne Marie Forbes (Qld)
Royston Gustavson (Vic)
Robyn Holmes (ACT)
Jaki Kane (ACT)
Elizabeth MacKinlay (Qld)
Shirley Trembath (Qld)
Jula Szuster (SA)
Hon.: David Symons (WA)
Correspondence Address:
GPO Box 2404
Canberra ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA
Editor, Musicology Australia
Volume XXI (1998):
Sandra McColl
2/308 Upper Heidelberg Road
IVANHOE VIC 3079
Telephone: +61 3 9497 3480
Facsimile: +61 3 9497 3481
E-mail: sfmccoll@netspace.net.au
Closing date for Newsletter contributions:
No. 51 August 1999 edition by Friday 31 July 1999
Editor, Newsletter:
John A. Phillips
GPO Box 2404
Canberra ACT 2601
Facsimile: +61 8 8395 5332
E-mail: jphil@chariot.net.au
Thanks to all contributors and to Jennie Shaw for her assistance in the preparation of
this issue.
AGM Minutes - 29 November 1998
OBITUARY
NAOMI CUMMING (1960–1999)
Members of the MSA will be shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Dr Naomi Cumming. Naomi had recently finished a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, and had arrived in Brisbane to take up a position of Senior Lecturer in the University of Queensland’s School of Music. On the second day of her appointment she suffered a brain haemorrhage, and died the following day, 6 January.
The loss to musicology is immense. Naomi had recently been riding the crest of a wave of acclaim, as the scholarly world woke up to her vast intellectual gifts, and in particular her expertise in music analysis, music philosophy and semiotics. During October and November 1998 she had toured North America and Europe giving many lectures and preparing the way for the publication of her book, The Sonic Self, which Indiana University Press is producing.
Just before Christmas the Society of Music Theory had announced that Naomi was to receive its Outstanding Publication Award for her article ‘The Subjectivities of "Erbarme Dich"’, published in volume 16 of Music Analysis. The citation read:
‘The Subjectivities of "Erbarme Dich"’ is a groundbreaking article on subjectivity and its consequence for our understanding of expressive meaning in music. Drawing on current approaches to ‘voice’, gesture, and agency in music, Cumming integrates semiotic, aesthetic, Schenkerian, and theological insights into the various subjectivities projected by Bach’s celebrated Passion aria. Profound in its philosophical investigations, and wide-ranging in its analytical claims, the article presents one of the most comprehensive accounts of how we interpret and, at times, identify with implied subjectivities in both vocal and instrumental music.
My most fond recollection of Naomi will be from the International Musicological Society’s Congress in London during August 1997. There, in Imperial College before a large audience, Naomi was the respondent to a music philosophy session involving Eero Tarasti, Ruth Katz, Lewis Rowell, and a paper from Peter Kivy. With not a sheet of paper in sight she introduced, classified and debated the stances of the participants. She was brilliant. ‘Who IS she?’, I heard someone behind me say so admiringly. And there was pride in my heart.
Malcolm Gillies
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ACT
Northern NSW
Queensland
South Australia
Sydney
Victoria
Robyn Holmes writes that the ACT Chapter has little to report: busy with national matters, they have not had local meetings for a while. President Helen Lawrence has moved to Papua New Guinea and Secretary Peter Campbell is currently moving to Melbourne. The Chapter will therefore be having an AGM shortly so it can get functional again.
Ed.
The U.N.E. Gamelan Group (Armidale), Swara Naga, has just returned from a successful series of concerts at the Woodford Folk Festival, and has been invited to perform at BEAT, an international gamelan festival in Wellington, New Zealand at the end of March. The group is also about to release its first CD recording of Indonesian gamelan music. Swara Naga often plays traditional/ modern gamelan degung music from West Java and is the only such active performing group in Australia. Recently, Swara Naga has become known as Australia’s ‘fusion’ gamelan, and this CD exemplifies this orientation with several new original compositions by group members which combine Western instruments and techniques with traditional gamelan style. The recording/ mixing was carried out at Southern Cross University studios in Lismore as a collaborative venture between U.N.E and S.C.U. and will be released through the NEA label. Cost is $25, available from: David Goldsworthy, Music, U.N.E., Armidale NSW 2351. Fax: 0267736450; Ph.: 0267736447.
David Goldsworthy
Regular bulletins have kept Queensland members abreast of their Chapter’s activities during 1998, which added up to a varied and successful year’s programme.
Visiting Yanyuwa women performers from the Aboriginal community at Borroloola in the NT shared their knowledge and culture with Chapter members on 27 April, beside the lovely University of Queensland lake. Dinah Norman and Nancy McDinny, assisted by Elizabeth MacKinlay, introduced us to a style of music and dance previously unfamiliar to many of us. With great good nature they encouraged the audience to join in the performance, which it did with considerable enthusiasm although varying degrees of aptitude.
Enthusiasm was also a keynote of the Soiree held in the Secretary’s Music Room on 8 May, at which Andrew McCredie was Guest of Honour. Members revealed some most unexpected talents, often in much lighter musical fields than those in which we are accustomed to hear them pontificate. The fare ranged from music hall and musicals to G & S, from parlour ballads to patter songs, with even the odd piece of ‘legit’ music for variety. The riotous evening culminated, if that be the appropriate word, with three—fortunately friendly—musicologists sharing the piano stool for a Grainger extravaganza.
The Chapter was invited to join the School of Music, University of Queensland, for its series of seminars in honour of Colin Brumby, on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Queensland. Seminars were presented through May and June by Jenny Dawson, Stephen Cronin, Malcolm Gillies and David Pear, and finally by the guest of honour himself—a warm and affectionate evening that developed into something suspiciously like ‘This Is Your Life’.
‘Embracing the 21st Century: Current Directions in Music Research’ was the title of the symposium held on 6 September at the Kelvin Grove campus, QUT. Ten young researchers presented papers on a bewildering assortment of topics, ranging over music therapy (Deborah Bongers, Laura Kirkland, Jane Davidson), aesthetics (Gavin Carfoot), Britten (Benedikte Palings), music of non-Western cultures (Andrea Layt, John Varney, Monique Earle), music of non-cultured Westerns—er, disco (JoAnn Curtis), and Dunstable (Bronwyn Ellis). It was encouraging to see such an array of interest, itself possibly encouraged by the Chapter’s Prize for Best Student Presentation. Congratulations are in order to all, especially the winner, John Varney. The day was enlivened by a spirited debate upon the topic ‘Has Musicology Had Its Day?’, which was adjudicated in the negative by the obviously biased audience.
The traditional Christmas Party, hospitably hosted by our Chairman on 6 December, rounded the year off nicely. Our next function will be the AGM, to be held comfortably over lunch at Wordsmiths Cafe, University of Queensland, on Sunday 14 March.
Jenny Dawson
Chapter activities in the latter half of 1998 stood understandably in the shadow of the International Wagner Symposium and the National Conference (see reports, pp. 20 and 15 respectively). We nonetheless managed two Chapter events, in August and December. Papers were given at the first of these by Warren Bourne (‘The late eighteenth-century clavichord’) and Jennie Shaw (‘Wagner in the Antipodes’, a published version of which appeared in the official program for the Adelaide Ring). In December Michael Morley offered us ‘Hanns Eissler: Music for words—Between cabaret and concert hall’. This year the Chapter will be presenting about seven evenings: dates and details will be mailed out to members shortly.
A new CD of Bruckner’s Ninth, with the second commercial release of the current writer’s Performing Version of the Finale, arrived in German record shops late last year (Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, under Johannes Wildner, Sonarte label). A further ‘Dokumentation’ of the surviving fragments of the movement is to be premiered in Vienna by the VSO under Nicholaus Harnoncourt in December.
John Phillips
It being that time of year again, the AGM of the Chapter was held in December. The 1999 committee consists of David Cashman, Convenor (Sydney Conservatorium, University of Sydney), Meredith Connie, Secretary (Music Department, University of Sydney), Jennifer Nevile, Treasurer (UNSW), Diana Blom (UWS), Terry Clinton (Sydney Conservatorium, University of Sydney), Barry Kenny (UNSW), Sally Macarthur (UWS) Peter McCallum (Sydney Conservatorium, University of Sydney) and Anne Power (UWS).
As our first official act of 1999, February 21 saw the University of Western Sydney Nepean host the Sydney Music Research Symposium. Ten papers were presented by some of musicologists from four universities on topics ranging from medieval music to cultural theory to instrument collecting. Papers were enthusiastically received by a small and vocal group who enjoyed a most successful and open forum. Thanks to my co-convenor, Sally Macarthur, keynote speaker Michael Atherton and to Anne Power for taking much of the load of the organisation.
The next issue of the chapter newsletter Articulation is due out in late March. This will contain, details of upcoming MSA-Sydney events as well as Michael Atherton’s keynote address from the February symposium. Thanks again to Terry Clinton, Meredith Connie and Caitlin Rowley.
Finally, the chapter is currently working with the Canberra chapter on the hosting of the Graduate Music Symposium 99. It will be hosted by Canberra chapter in August 1999. More details on this can be found on the chapter website (http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Choir/3042/index.html), in Articulation or by emailing David Cashman (dcashman@mail.usyd.edu.au)
David Cashman
Chapter activities in the latter half of 1998 included the Chapter Conference, the awarding of the Musicology Prize, and the Chapter Annual General Meeting.
The MSA Victorian Chapter Conference was held on 13 November at the School of Graduate Studies, University of Melbourne, and contained a very wide variety of paper topics. Speakers were: Michelle Duffy on the Brunswick Music Festival; Ellina Zipman ‘About Musical Visuality’; Daniela Kaleva on Beethoven and melodrama; June Chan on the early Romantic Nocturne; Royston Gustavson on contrafacta in a 16th-century print; John Weretka on Cartesian dualism; John Byrne and Laurence Moore on 19th-century church music in the Catholic and Presbyterian traditions respectively; Elizabeth Kertesz on Ethel Smyth and English nationalism; Michael Christoforidis on Manuel de Falla and Spanish nationalism; and, finally, conference convenor Suzanne Robinson with a preview of her national conference paper, ‘Saving Civilization: Tippett and "The Auden Generation".’
Aaron Corn (PhD candidate, University of Melbourne) was the winner of the 1998 Musicology Prize, which carries $200 prize money, for his Chapter Conference paper entitled ‘Burr-Gi Wargugu Ngi-Ninya Rrawa: The Letterstick Band and Ancestral Ties to Country in Arnhem Land.’
The Chapter AGM was held at the end of the day. President and Treasurer both presented reports, and new Committee members were elected. Royston Gustavson, Treasurer for five years, is replaced by John Weretka, a student member and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Royston’s final Treasurer’s Report details the Chapter’s healthy financial situation ($3,492.20 at 2 November 1998). Also new to the committee is Suzanne Cole, another PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, who replaces Melinda Sawers as Secretary.
Two recent publications by chapter members are worthy of mention here. John Whiteoak’s Playing Ad Lib. (Sydney: Currency Press, 1998) is a cultural history of improvisatory music from colonial minstrel shows to circus bands to experimental jazz and music theatre, based on the author’s PhD dissertation Australian Approaches to Improvisatory Musical Practice 1836–1970: A Melbourne Perspective (LaTrobe, 1993). John Whiteoak has also edited, together with Aline Scott-Maxwell the forthcoming Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia, due out later this year.
Patricia Shaw
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CONFERENCE REPORTS AND NOTICES
International Wagner Symposium
‘Wagner at the Millennium’
The University of Adelaide, 25–27 November 1998
Organised by a committee formed in 1996 at the instigation of late Adelaide composer Malcolm Fox and comprising members of both MSA/SA Chapter and The Richard Wagner Society of SA, the International Wagner Symposium ‘Wagner at the Millennium’ was convened to mark the occasion of the first production of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Adelaide. Calls for papers were made internationally and attracted a large number of proposals. The programme featured keynote addresses by four Wagner specialists, John Deathridge (London), Oswald Georg Bauer (Munich), Dieter Borchmeyer (Heidelberg) and Barry Millington (London). John Deathridge also gave a lecture for the University of Adelaide Foundation. A further 15 papers given by an international cast of scholars covered a broad spectrum of Wagnerian issues, capped off by a final round table addressing ‘The Production and Reception of Wagner’s Works at the Millennium’. The Symposium, which also featured a formal dinner, attracted over 120 delegates, many of them Ring patrons, some of whom stayed on for the MSA conference, and even received coverage in the local ABC television news. Conference booklets ($5) are still available for those interested in further details.
John Phillips
CIMCIM Conference
The conference of CIMCIM, which is an international committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) centred in Paris, was held in the Melbourne Trade Centre from 12 to 14 August 1998 as part of the World ICOM Congress. The program of papers was convened by Professor Margaret Kartomi. General organisers included CIMCIM Vice-President Arnold Myers of Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, CIMCIM General Secretary Margaret Birley of the Horniman Museum in London and Michael Lea of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
Papers were presented by international CIMCIM members and others on aspects of musical instrument collections and organology from various parts of the world, including East and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Australia and Europe. Some of these papers will be published in the March 1999 issue of TAASA Review, the journal of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. Delegates enjoyed visits to the Powerhouse Museum, the Performing Arts Museum, the Grainger Museum, and Monash University’s Southeast Asian Music Archive. As a result of the latter visit, some curator members are actively advising the Monash Music Department about the conservation project of a rare gamelan orchestra held at Monash which was made in an prison camp of the Dutch East Indies in Digul in 1927.
The newly elected World President of CIMCIM (Comité International des Musées et Collections d’Instrumente de Musique) is Eszter Fontana, curator of the Musikinstrumentenmuseum in Leipzig. She says she will welcome Australian musicological visitors to the world-famous instruments museum which she directs.
Margaret Kartomi
35th ITCM World Conference
Hiroshima 1999
The 35th ITCM World Conference will be held from Thursday 19 August (beginning in the morning) to Wednesday 25 August 1999 (Sunday is reserved as a rest day). The 34th Ordinary General Assembly of the ICTM will be held at the Auditorium of Hiroshima City University on Saturday, 21 August 1999, from 3.30 to 5.00 pm.
For further details, including registration, accommodation, tours and
travel information, please contact:
Allan Marett
Department of Music
University of Sydney
SYDNEY NSW 2006
E-mail address: allan.marett@music.usyd.edu.au
The ICTM homepage also has information on the conference:
http://www.music.columbia.edu/~ictm
Ed., from information kindly supplied by Allan Marett
22nd National Conference
of the Musicological Society of Australia
‘Research and Musical Performance’
The University of Western Australia, Perth, Wednesday 30 June to Saturday 3 July 1999. Includes MSA Special General Meeting, 9.00 am, Sunday 4 July.
Convenors: Emeritus Professor David Tunley and Dr David Symons
Secretary: Victoria Rogers
Treasurer: Patricia Thorpe
Conference Address:
School of Music
University of Western Australia
Nedlands WA 6907
Facsimile: +61 8 9380 1076
E-mail: vrogers@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
(Victoria Rogers)
CALL FOR PAPERS: The chosen theme addresses the interface between musical research and the contexts and practices of musical performance within Western (classical and vernacular) and other traditions. It is therefore hoped that it will encourage a wide variety of papers. Please note that papers should not exceed 25 minutes in duration (including any audio visual presentation).
ABSTRACTS: These should be no longer than 400 words and sent to the Convenors no later than 22 March. Notice of acceptance will be mailed by 31 March 1999. Printed copies of abstracts will be included in the programme.
VENUES: Most of the conference will take place in The University of Western Australia’s School of Music. A highlight of the conference is a visit on Saturday 3 July to the Benedictine Monastery at New Norcia (130 kms from Perth) where some papers related to its remarkable early musical activities will be presented.
TRAVEL: Members are urged to take advantage of the special fares (which stipulate the inclusion of the Saturday night in Perth). These are available through advance purchase. Book now!
TRAVEL GRANTS: A number of travel grants of $200 each are being offered to research students from interstate, and while preference will be given to full-time students and those giving papers at the conference all applications will be considered. Applicants should write immediately to the convenors, enclosing an endorsement from their research supervisors or head of department.
GUEST SPEAKERS: Professor Peter Walls (Victoria University of Wellington); Dr John Rink (Royal Holloway, University of London); Professor Margaret Kartomi (Monash University); Dr Stanley Sadie (Editor, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians).
Draft Programme
Wednesday 30 June
12.00–2.00 pm Registration
2.00 pm Official Opening by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Alan Robson
1st keynote address and discussion
Afternoon tea
4.00 pm 1st session
6.00 pm Concert
Thursday 1 July
Morning 2nd keynote address and discussion
Morning tea
2nd session
Lunch
Afternoon 3rd session
Afternoon tea
4th session
6.00 pm Concert
Friday 2 July
Morning 3rd keynote address and discussion
Morning tea
5th session
Lunch
Afternoon 6th session
Afternoon tea
7th session
7.00 pm Conference dinner, Matilda Bay restaurant
Saturday 3 July
All-day trip to the historic Benedictine Monastery at New Norcia where papers related to its remarkable early music activities will be presented. The day will include a visit to the monastery art gallery and a short recital on the historic organ in the abbey church.
Sunday 4 July
9.00–11.00 am MSA Special General Meeting
Victoria Rogers
Forms including registration and accommodation details are enclosed. Brochures with further details of the conference are available from the Conference Secretary.
The final programme for the conference and official announcement of the Perth SGM will be posted to MSA members in May.
Wagga Wagga Weekend Weekend (WWWW) "Conversations About Music Research"
Submissions to Registers
This is to remind members to submit details of their publications during 1999 (calendar year) for inclusion in the Register of Members' Publications in the next issue of Musicology Australia. Also due are details of undergraduate theses in music completed during 1998/1998. Details should be sent to:
Editor, Musicology
Australia: Sandra McColl
sfmccoll@netspace.net.au
2/308 Upper Heidelberg Road
IVANHOE VIC 3079
Telephone: +61 3 9497 3480
Facsimile: +61 3 9497 3481
Sandra would prefer electronic submissions either on disk or by email,
including attached documents in Word format for Macintosh or Windows, or WordPerfect for
DOS.
Register of Graduate Theses-in-Progress
Each issue of Musicology Australia contains an updated and revised list of theses being completed at Australian universities on music-related topics. Members are requested to submit new or revised details on a copy of the form Notification of Thesis-in-Progress. Please send submissions to the Musicological Society's postal address (GPO Box 2404, Canberra ACT 2601) or directly to Jaki Kane:
Jaki.Kane@anu.edu.au
Canberra School of Music
GPO Box 804
CANBERRA ACT 2601
If your thesis is currently listed as 'in progress' but you have subsequently been awarded your degree, please notify us. If you are aware of theses that are currently in progress but have not been listed in Musicology Australia, please give a copy of the form to the relevant person. This is equally important for theses being completed in non-music departments such as anthropology, sociology, history or cultural studies.
Notification of Thesis-in-Progress
Please send to:
Musicological Society of
Australia
GPO Box 2404
CANBERRA ACT 2601
Telephone/Facsimile: +61 8 8395
5332
Email: jphil@chariot.net.au
(Office use only) Code: _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _
Year Award Num
Surname:__________________________________________________________________________________________
Given Names:_____________________________________________________________________________________
Name of Degree:__________________________________________________________________________________
Awarding Institution:_______________________________________________________________________________
Year Study Commenced: 19______
Title of Thesis: (if a final title has not been decided upon, a working title is satisfactory)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Major Subject Category (see below): _____________________________________________
Minor Category (if applicable): __________________________________________________
Please provide up to three (3) single keywords that describe the subject of your thesis:
_____________________ ______________________ _______________________
A Australasia
A1 Indigenous music
A2 Australasian 'art' music
A3 Music of other ethnic traditions
A4 Popular music (folk, jazz, rock, etc)
B Western Historical Traditions
B1 Ancient and Medieval
B2 Renaissance
B3 Baroque
B4 Classical
B5 Romantic (Nineteenth Century)
B6 Twentieth Century
C Non-Australasian Traditional Music
D Non-Australasian Popular Music (folk, jazz, rock, etc)
E Music Education/Pedagogy
F Other (not elsewhere classified)
For example: Analysis, Theory, Criticism, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Sociology, Literature, Law, Organology, Editing, Publishing, Dance, Technology, Bibliography, etc.
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