Interactions between Popular and Art Musics in the United States Apr. 4-5 2013 Paris
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Society for Music Theory
May 31, 2012, 3:48:02 PM5/31/12
to Music Theory Events and CFPs
Interactions between Popular and Art Musics in the United States
(20th and 21st centuries)
4-5 April 2013
Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemporaine (CDMC)
Paris FRANCE
CRAL (Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage) UMR8566
EHESS, Music Team)
RASM (Recherche, Art, Spectacle, Musique) University of Evry-Val
d’Essonne
CDMC (Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemporaine)
Call for papers
This conference seeks to examine the interactions between popular and
art American music in the 20th and 21st centuries, adopting a
perspective as large as possible, including the reconsideration of
America’s near and remote past and the careful observation of its
present, as a means of taking stock of the great musical richness of a
country in continual cultural transformation.
Over the course of the past century, American music written for the
concert hall has integrated elements of language, genres, and
aesthetics derived from the most diverse forms of popular music. One
need only consider the work of composers such as Charles Ives, George
Gershwin, Aaron Copland or John Adams, among others, to recognize the
importance of the phenomenon. Conversely, numerous composers of so-
called popular music, from jazzman Duke Ellington to rocker Frank
Zappa and beyond, have crossed the Rubicon and explored the “sacred”
territories of classical music. Such practices have aroused
considerable controversy, however, both among supporters of a music
produced at a remove from external “contamination” and among the
upholders of a more open style of creation drawing energy and renewal
from musical practices and genres closer to a mass public. In 1935, a
composer such as Virgil Thomson could write, with regard to Porgy and
Bess, that he did not really mind whether Gershwin composed art or
popular music, but he wished he would make a clear choice between the
two. For many American composers today, the question of such a choice
no longer presents itself, or at least not in such clear-cut terms.
Although a few pockets of resistance are still holding a radical
position, the fear of letting the Trojan horse into the ivory tower of
art music seems to belong to another age. As Alex Ross put it at the
dawn of the 21st century, the temptation to eternally oppose art music
and popular culture no longer makes sense, emotionally or
intellectually.
Although the differences between popular and art music have become
less marked, however, they have not disappeared -- far from it. It is
thus worth asking whether these differences do not in fact continue to
act as a creative stimulant and regenerative force on both sides.
What, moreover, does the future hold in this regard? Does the ever-
increasing porosity of both
art and popular music, by favoring incessant cross-fertilization,
prefigure the end of such distinctions? Is the fate of American art
music already sealed? Is it bound to disappear as such? Although this
conference does not pretend to provide definite answers, it is hoped
that these questions will repeatedly emerge during the debates and
roundtables.
The conference is open to a wide range of musics. Approaches will be
situated within the fields of musical analysis, musical history,
cultural history, social sciences or aesthetics.
Contact : Max Noubel, scientific director Des ponts vers l’Amérique
III
maxn...@gmail.com
Each paper will be limited to a 30-minute presentation with an
additional 10-minute discussion
follow-up.
Languages of the conference: French or English
Please send an abstract of not more than 400 words as well as a short
résumé to:
c_des...@orange.fr
Dealine : 1 November 2012
Papers will be published on the CRAL website (http://cral.ehess.fr)
(20th and 21st centuries)
4-5 April 2013
Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemporaine (CDMC)
Paris FRANCE
CRAL (Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage) UMR8566
EHESS, Music Team)
RASM (Recherche, Art, Spectacle, Musique) University of Evry-Val
d’Essonne
CDMC (Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemporaine)
Call for papers
This conference seeks to examine the interactions between popular and
art American music in the 20th and 21st centuries, adopting a
perspective as large as possible, including the reconsideration of
America’s near and remote past and the careful observation of its
present, as a means of taking stock of the great musical richness of a
country in continual cultural transformation.
Over the course of the past century, American music written for the
concert hall has integrated elements of language, genres, and
aesthetics derived from the most diverse forms of popular music. One
need only consider the work of composers such as Charles Ives, George
Gershwin, Aaron Copland or John Adams, among others, to recognize the
importance of the phenomenon. Conversely, numerous composers of so-
called popular music, from jazzman Duke Ellington to rocker Frank
Zappa and beyond, have crossed the Rubicon and explored the “sacred”
territories of classical music. Such practices have aroused
considerable controversy, however, both among supporters of a music
produced at a remove from external “contamination” and among the
upholders of a more open style of creation drawing energy and renewal
from musical practices and genres closer to a mass public. In 1935, a
composer such as Virgil Thomson could write, with regard to Porgy and
Bess, that he did not really mind whether Gershwin composed art or
popular music, but he wished he would make a clear choice between the
two. For many American composers today, the question of such a choice
no longer presents itself, or at least not in such clear-cut terms.
Although a few pockets of resistance are still holding a radical
position, the fear of letting the Trojan horse into the ivory tower of
art music seems to belong to another age. As Alex Ross put it at the
dawn of the 21st century, the temptation to eternally oppose art music
and popular culture no longer makes sense, emotionally or
intellectually.
Although the differences between popular and art music have become
less marked, however, they have not disappeared -- far from it. It is
thus worth asking whether these differences do not in fact continue to
act as a creative stimulant and regenerative force on both sides.
What, moreover, does the future hold in this regard? Does the ever-
increasing porosity of both
art and popular music, by favoring incessant cross-fertilization,
prefigure the end of such distinctions? Is the fate of American art
music already sealed? Is it bound to disappear as such? Although this
conference does not pretend to provide definite answers, it is hoped
that these questions will repeatedly emerge during the debates and
roundtables.
The conference is open to a wide range of musics. Approaches will be
situated within the fields of musical analysis, musical history,
cultural history, social sciences or aesthetics.
Contact : Max Noubel, scientific director Des ponts vers l’Amérique
III
maxn...@gmail.com
Each paper will be limited to a 30-minute presentation with an
additional 10-minute discussion
follow-up.
Languages of the conference: French or English
Please send an abstract of not more than 400 words as well as a short
résumé to:
c_des...@orange.fr
Dealine : 1 November 2012
Papers will be published on the CRAL website (http://cral.ehess.fr)
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