[ANPPOM-Lista] Call for Papers: Is there a Musical Avant Garde Today?

[Camila Durães Zerbinatti]

Call for Papers: Is there a Musical Avant Garde Today?An RMA Study Day

21 Jul 17

City, University of London
<http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/music>
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A study day at City, University of London, July 21st 2017.

Keynote: Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London).
Call for Papers

What would it mean to talk of 'progressive' music today? Applied to the
past or, especially, the present, the term ‘avant-garde’ has largely fallen
out of favour within the academy, both as a description of and an
imperative for new music. Yet much contemporary music - whichever
combinations of limited terms such as 'art', 'popular,' 'classical' or
'commercial' might apply to it - defines itself, if often all too
implicitly, in ways most often associated with avant-garde movements: a
focus on stylistic complexity and innovation, and an antagonism towards
aesthetic norms and the predominant modes of political thought and practice
associated with them. But can such a concept still have currency for
musicologists and composers?

The aim of this Study Day is to stimulate a broad, interdisciplinary
conversation about how, if at all, to talk of an avant-garde in musical
cultures today. For the purposes of this conference, the term ‘avant-garde’
is fluid, but is broadly defined as a particular idea and praxis of a music
more progressive than certain others.

We invite scholars and practitioners from different fields to address the
ways in which musical avant-gardes today are both practiced and
discursively constructed. Topics for discussion could include, but are not
limited to the following:

   - Might there be one, distinct avant-garde (as our title suggests) or
   many? Should there be one or many?
   - How is the avant-garde politically motivated, and how does it
   contribute to discussions about race, class, and gender? Is it necessary
   that the musical avant-garde be a mouthpiece for social and political
   issues, or can these remain indirect, implicit?
   - Is the musical avant-garde located within ‘classical’ or ‘art’ or
   ‘popular’ or ‘experimental’ music, or none of the above? Can we (still)
   locate avant-gardes within, variously, art-music, bohemian, bourgeois,
   academic, urban, or minority cultures? Is a musical avant-garde synonymous
   with an 'underground,' a 'counterculture,' or a 'subculture'? Is the
   avant-garde merely a Western concept or can it be discerned elsewhere? To
   what extent are all such distinctions even useful?
   - What is the present relationship between avant-gardes, patronage, and
   institutions? Should avant-gardes avoid direct interaction with capital and
   other forms of social organisation, or should they embrace them? How do
   musical avant-gardes interact with and condition physical space? How do
   they relate to emerging technologies?
   - Ultimately: is progression in musical aesthetics a possible or
   desirable goal? What might we demand of a musical avant-garde, and what
   might it demand of us?

Potential contributors are invited to submit abstracts of up to 300 words
and a short bio to Alexi Vellianitis via email at
alexi.vellianitis em music.ox.ac.uk.

*Dealine extended to 30 May*
Study day panel:

   - Alexi Vellianitis (University of Oxford)
   - Adam Harper (City, University of London)
   - Rachel McCarthy (Royal Holloway, University of London)

We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Royal Musical Association.


https://www.rma.ac.uk/conferences/event.asp?id=1023