BFE Conference Programme 2019

British Forum for Ethnomusicology 2019 Annual Conference 11-14 April 2019 The Elphinstone Institute MacRobert Building University of Aberdeen AB24 5UA British Forum for bfe Ethnomusicology ‘Fae the North East’ A Celebration of Traditional Music and Song Friday, 12 April 2019 8.00 to 11.00 pm featuring Joe Aitken Ellie Beaton Kory Buckingham Janice Clark George Davidson Cassie Findlay Geordie Murison Jim Taylor and Special Guest from Northern Canada Thelma Cheechoo Hosted by Ian Russell The Blue Lamp 121 Gallowgate, Aberdeen AB25 1BU Tickets £10.00 (£8.00 concessions) at the door or call 01224 272996 to reserve a ticket Celebrating the visit of the British Forum2 for Ethnomusicology to Aberdeen WELCOME FROM THE BFE CHAIR Welcome to the British Forum for Ethnomusicology 2019 Annual Conference, hosted this year by the University of Aberdeen. I am very grateful to Dr Frances Wilkins, Professor Ian Russell and the rest of the Local Arrangements Committee, who have been working hard behind the scenes to ensure this is a fun and intellectually encouraging exchange. I recall the last time I presented at the BFE conference at Aberdeen in 2004 with pleasure, as it was one of my first presentations at an academic conference. Then, as now, the BFE was an open and very plural ‘big tent’ as an academic subject association, welcoming a diverse range of speakers and topics. That has not changed I’m happy to say, and the programme for this annual conference in 2019 is similarly catholic and stimulating. I very much hope that those of us here actively engage in the presentations, the debate and in positive debate. I also wish to hear from as many of you as possible about what the BFE might do in the coming years, and how we might improve this subject association. To that end, I’d encourage all members to attend the AGM and contribute to our discussions, and I’m especially interested in hearing from members who have views about how we might extend the reach of ethnomusicology beyond the academy. You can reach me at any time by emailing [email protected]. uk. Good luck, and best wishes for the 2019 annual conference. Dr Simon McKerrell Chair, British Forum for Ethnomusicology WELCOME TO THE ELPHINSTONE INSTITUTE On behalf of the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone attending the 2019 BFE conference in Aberdeen. It is a great pleasure to host the conference for a second time, and we are excited to be bringing academics and performers together from across the globe to discuss their research and experiences of collaboration in ethnomusicological research and discourse. We would especially like to welcome our keynote speaker, Mellonee Burnim, Professor Emerita at Indiana University, who will be giving her lecture on Friday 12th April, and performers and researchers Thelma Cheechoo and Michael Etherington from the James Bay area of Northern Canada, who will be giving a joint presentation and performances to coincide with the exhibition, Nimitaau|Let’s Dance: Fiddle-Dancing through Scots and Eeyouch Cultures which will be on display in the MacRobert Building for the duration of the conference. The Elphinstone Institute is a centre for the study of Ethnology, Folklore, and Ethnomusicology at the University of Aberdeen. Established in 1995 in celebration of the quincentenary of the university’s founding, the Institute researches and promotes the culture of the North and North-East of Scotland in context.Using ethnographic methodologies, staff, research fellows, and students research ideas of identity and belonging, meaning and function, drawing on an exceptional heritage of traditional music, song, story, lore and language, alongside the dynamic creativity of those who live and work here today. Our work is focused on living vernacular culture and the ways in which individuals give expression to contemporary issues of community and identity in both public and private life. We are interested in the dynamics of how traditions and cultures are created, adapted, reinterpreted and renewed, to meet new and challenging circumstances. The interests of the Elphinstone Institute are international as well as local, since the great diaspora of northern Scots stretches around the world, and because many immigrants have chosen Scotland as home. We look forward to meeting you at BFE 2019! Dr Frances Wilkins Lecturer in Ethnomusicology, The Elphinstone Institute 2 1 KEYNOTE SPEAKER MELLONEE BURNIM Professor Emerita, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University, USA Keynote Address Friday 12 April at 16:00 MacRobert Lecture Theatre, MacRobert Building, University of Aberdeen 2 Hidden Musical Transcripts in National Rituals of Mourning and Marriage: A British Royal Wedding, an (African) American Funeral Abstract In 2015, the United States mourned the loss of nine innocent victims of a hate crime committed during a week-night Bible Study in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Backed by a pulpit filled with AME bishops, and an audience of 5000, most of whom were African American, President Barack Obama delivered a 37-minute eulogy, which he ended with the perennial favorite hymn, “Amazing Grace.” Obama was the ultimate statesman, hardly a musician by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, his musical offering became a focal point of the four-hour service, permanently etched in the minds and hearts of the nation through widespread television coverage and social media. Three years later, an equally poignant national musical exchange occurred during the royal wedding of American Megan Markle and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. In a ceremony filled with classical music, choral director Karen Gibson led the 20-voice Kingdom Choir, most of whom were of African descent, in a gospel- inspired arrangement of “Stand By Me,” originally recorded as rhythm and blues in the US in 1961 by Ben E. King. The Kingdom Choir version has now been watched on You Tube several million times, signaling the widespread appeal the song and the ensemble have generated. While the realization of these two compelling, yet disparate musical moments might appear to have been crafted by lone individuals, in actuality, powerful unnamed collectives coalesced prior to and during the actual ritual events, to bring to fruition the multiple meanings embodied in these iconic musical exchanges. This paper will explore those contrasting yet complementary behind-the-scenes, hidden transcripts that informed each of these musical productions, and also contributed to the broad national receptivity they generated. Biography MELLONEE BURNIM is professor emerita in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, and retired Director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University-Bloomington, USA. She is a past Director of the Ethnomusicology Institute at IU and has served as chairperson in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. She is a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of North Texas and was selected as the first Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Ethnomusicology and Ritual Studies at the Yale Institute for Sacred Music in 2004. In 2001, Burnim was selected as a Ford Foundation womanist scholar at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. She holds the BME (cum laude) in music education from North Texas State University (1971); MM in ethnomusicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1976); and the PhD in ethnomusicology from Indiana University (1980). As an ethnomusicologist with a specialization in African American religious music, Burnim has done fieldwork and led choral music workshops on African American religious music across the United States, as well as in Cuba and Malawi. She is co-editor of African American Music: An Introduction (Routledge 2006), now in its second edition (2015). This text has been widely adopted in universities across the US. In 2016, Burnim co-edited Issues in African American Music: Race, Power, Gender and Representation (Routledge), which includes her research on women in the gospel music tradition and the gospel music industry. 2 3 Conference Team The conference is being led by Dr Frances Wilkins together with Professor Ian Russell and ably assisted by an excellent team of staff, students and associates of The Elphinstone Institute: Alison Shaman, Jenny Shirreffs, Chris Wright, Pat Ballantyne, Ian Richardson, Mara Barnum, Eleanor Telfer, Rebecca Palomino, Wenqiu Chen, Jim Brown, Eilidh Whiteford and Shannon Stevenson. If you have any questions, you will find members of the team at the conference venue and on the registration and helpdesk in the MacRobert Building, from 11am on Thursday the 11th April. The conference email is [email protected] Disabled Facilities There are disabled facilities located on the ground floor of the MacRobert Building, and the building is accessible with a wheelchair. If you have any accessibility needs please contact us in advance and we will do our very best to help: bfeaberdeen2019@ gmail.com. Printing and Photocopying There are no photocopying or printing facilities available to delegates within the MacRobert Building. These facilities are controlled through the use of a smart card, which will not be available to BFE delegates. If any printing or photocopying is required, please ensure this is done prior to arriving at the conference. Notes on Programme • Tea and coffee will be provided at each break noted in the programme. A basic lunch will be provided as part of the cost of the conference registration fee, but dinner will not. Water is also available and there is a cafe area inside the conference building which serves food and snacks and will be open on the Thursday and Friday of the conference. Delegates must indicate any dietary requirements upon registration. • Panel presenters should ensure that they agree a format for presentations that enables all panellists equitable presentation accounting for discussion time. • All rooms for panels and sessions are located on the ground floor of the MacRobert Building, Kings College, Aberdeen AB24 5UA • The helpdesk will be located on the ground floor of the MacRobert Building.

Load more