Islands 2007
22-25 November 2007
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University,
Brisbane, Australia
Presented by the Musicological Society of Australia and the New Zealand Musicological Society in collaboration with Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University.
Much music research in the Asia-Pacific region focuses on actual islands – from ethnomusicological studies of localised cultures in literal danger of being submerged in a rising ocean, to studies of developments in composition in the European-based art music of major land areas such as Australia and New Zealand. But Islands can also be interpreted in a more metaphorical way. For instance, musical subcultures can be viewed as solitary islands, or as points of connection with their surrounding cultural landscapes or seascapes. The individual research traditions and musicians that inhabit and investigate these metaphorical islands also travel between states of isolation and population in their musical voyages. In the spirit of John Donne's reverberant phrase "no man is an island," the theme also invites reflection on connections and disconnections from time to time, culture to culture, island to island, person to person, and between musicians and audiences. Under this overarching theme, the conference will feature seven strands.
The conference program is starting to look promising, with well over 100 papers, a number of interesting panels that will facilitate in-depth exchange on key issues relating to the conference strands, and a series of exciting concerts.
The conference will also be run in conjunction with Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre's Encounters – a program of concerts, lectures and workshops that investigate musical encounters between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Tying in with the Building musical futures theme of the Queensland Conservatorium’s 50th anniversary celebrations, Encounters II will include an exciting array of performances of traditional Maori music, Balinese gamelan, traditional and popular music from Torres Strait and Bathurst Islands, shakuhachi music performed by Riley Lee, and a world premiere of Waiata Arohaby New Zealand composer Rod Biss.
Key-note speakers at Islands will include Nicholas Cook (Royal Holloway, University of London), Deborah Wong (University of California Riverside), and Andy Bennett (Griffith University). Cambridge Scholars Press has indicated a strong interest in an "Islands" conference publication. More details about this will follow in the coming months.