Conferences and symposia
MSANZ conference 2007
Islands, the joint conference of the Musicological Societies of Australia and New Zealand, was co-hosted by Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre from 22-25 November 2007.
This event was themed around 'Islands', referring both to the literal study of music from the many landmasses in the region surrounded by sea, and to metaphorical islands, inviting reflections on connections and disconnections between places and cultures.
- For more see Islands 2007
National Council of Tertiary Music Schools conference 2007
From 29 June to 1 July 2007, the National Council of Tertiary Music Schools presented a conference, Music in Australian Tertiary Institutions: Issues for the 21st Century, focussing on issues facing the tertiary music sector. The conference placed particular emphasis on the needs of emerging professional musicians and their mentors in the contemporary environment. It was held at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and hosted by Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre.
- To read the publication see National Council of Tertiary Music Schools
Seventh International Cultural Diversity in Music Education Symposium 2005
The Seventh International Symposium on Cultural Diversity in Music Education was hosted by Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre from November 10-13, 2005.
The musical landscape - and our perception of it - has changed drastically over the past few decades. Local musics have become global, and many types of music that have spread globally have taken on significance in local settings. The effects of this can be felt in music teaching and learning: from professional training in specific traditions to community music and music in schools. This conference explored key emerging issues in each of these three settings.
- For more information visit Cultural Diversity in Music Education
Encounters
Encounters: Musical meetings between Australia and China
In 2010, Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre hosted Encounters: Musical meetings between Australia and China, a festival and symposium exploring a rich but relatively unknown history of mutual interaction and influence.
Encounters traces nearly two centuries of these interactions through a series of exciting concerts, theatre, photography, and film events, as well as lively panel discussions, lecture-demonstrations and academic papers. Highlights of the festival and symposium include: the Harvest of Endurance commission, which features the new music from 18 of Australia's most talented and accomplished composers; an orchestral concert featuring works by Australian and Chinese composers; and Chinese aura, a concert of contemporary music on traditional Chinese instruments by the New Purple Forbidden City Orchestra.
- For more information visit Encounters: China
Encounters: Asia-Pacific
The second edition of Encounters was held in November 2007, as part of Building Musical Futures, the 50th anniversary celebration of Queensland Conservatorium. Encounters II explored the relationship between Australian music and the Asia-Pacific region at large, and brought together a suite of themes: islands, water, voyages of discovery, and utopias in music. Encounters II coincided with the joint conference of the Musicological Societies of Australia and New Zealand (Islands 2007), which was co-hosted by Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre.
Encounters: Meetings in Australian Music
The first edition of this project (April 2005) was a six-day event curated by composer/broadcaster Vincent Plush, encompassing a symposium, lectures, public debate, film screenings, an exhibition, as well as performances of over 60 rarely heard works, with Australia's premier composer Peter Sculthorpe and young didgeridoo master William Barton as artists-in-residence. Encounters: Meetings in Australian Music critically traced 200 years of musical interactions between Aboriginal and European cultures on Australian soil. It invited open debate between communities, musicians, venues and educational institutions. 1,700 people attended one or more sessions.
- See Encounters for a collection of essays, interviews and images.
Other signature events
Australian Percussion Gathering 2010
In August 2010, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University hosted the Australian Percussion Gathering in collaboration with Clocked Out, South Bank Corporation, Optimum Percussion and The Australian Percussion Centre. We were delighted to host international guests Prof. Steven Schick, Sylvio Gualdo, Kuniko Kato and Phil Treloar to this event. They performed alongside Speak Percussion, Clocked Out, and ensembles from all tertiary institutions in Australia. Additionally, there were workshops, masterclasses, a conference - Moving Ground, Percussion Today - a competition, a community music performance of 1,000 gongs and a bush trip. Percussionists, musicians, academics, composers, and interested public are all welcome to the event.
iOrpheus 2007
In August 2007, the prominent New York based composer William Duckworth worked with Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre on a Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant to create a world premiere of iOrpheus, an iPod based public opera created with co-collaborator Nora Farrell, and featuring downloaded scenes merging with live music, ringtones and a wireless sound garden in the South Bank Parklands.
Revolving around the five central moments in the Orpheus legend - The Wedding, The Death, The River, The Look, and Home - the performance was an artistic extravaganza. Including a fanfare, 5 acts, and 5 ribbons of sound (music created by individuals moving through the park), iOrpheus presented a unique opportunity for members of the Brisbane community to experience a pluralistic music of the next century. As Duckworth says, it "put everyday consumer devices at the service of art, and allow anyone with an iPod, mobile phone, or laptop to take part in the show."
The iOrpheus performance was realised in collaboration with South Bank Corporation, and marked Duckworth and Farrell's second visit to Brisbane. Their initial appearance was at the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2002 for the Mini-Max Festival.
- For more information visit the iOrpheus website.
Niche events
Sounding the Condamine
On April 18 2009, Sounding the Condamine payed tribute to the famous Condamine bell that sounded the Queensland landscape in the late 19th century. A site-specific performance piece drawing on folk songs (On the banks of the Condamine), bush poetry (in particular Condamine Jack), the sound of the bells (which locals say can be heard up to 20 miles away on a cold still night), and the environmental sounds of the Murilla shire, a performance piece involving music, livestock, installation and movement was carved into the landscape. Footage from the performance will become part of a digital archive which will also incorporate interviews, historical information, sounds and images. The project was brought back to QCGU and adapted for performance in the Ian Hanger Recital Hall on May 2, 2009. This project was curated by Clocked Out and was a part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the state of Queensland, in 2009.
Male Voices
April 2009 saw the publication of Male Voices: Stories of boys learning through making music, a collection of articles edited by Scott Harrison exploring issues of young males learning to make music in contemporary settings.
Male Voices is filled with stories of boys and men participating in the creation of music. It brings together leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of music from the conductor of the award-winning, mould-breaking Birralee Blokes, Paul Holley, who comments on the phenomenal success of his choir, through to internationally recognised scholars, Dr Scott Harrison and Dr Bob Smith, who bring research into adolescent participation and indigenous music-making respectively. This book offers a variety of viewpoints. Academics help to position the study of male engagement in music throughout the life cycle, while teachers in private and state schools across the country offer their views alongside those of professional musicians.
- For more information or to order a copy, see Male Voices.
Music, Recording, and the Art of Interpretation
In his Kawai Keyboard Series recital in October 2008 Dr. Stephen Emmerson performed a programme of seminal piano works from 1908/1909: Berg’s Sonata Op. 1, Schoenberg’s 3 Piano Pieces Op. 11, and Bartok’s 14 Bagatelles Op. 6. The performance drew on various interpretive strategies including analysis, reflection, and the use of Schoenberg’s paintings, to highlight certain aspects of the works. A further layer to this artistic research was added in December when, over three days, Dr. Emmerson and Prof. Paul Draper moved into Conservatorium Theatre in December to record the repertoire via the IMERSD studio.
The project is based on the premise that a recording is not 'music' itself, rather, is a virtual artefact through which an interpretation can be manipulated and enhanced through deliberate interference in the recording process. The piano was recorded via a complex setup involving sixteen microphones spaced at different positions throughout the hall which enabled 'multiple perspectives' to be attained. In contrast to the usual practice where recordings maintain a single piano sound and perspective, the project will explore ways in which the interpretation of such challenging music can be further communicated through manipulation of these various perspectives. For example, spatial metaphors of closeness/intimacy and distance are already embedded in much of this music and so, rather than merely imposing distracting effects on the music, the researchers contend that the essential meaning of such music may be enhanced through this process. Already this project has proved to be a highly stimulating collaboration between different artists with respective expertise in Classical music performance and contemporary sound production.
A paper was presented by Dr. Emmerson and Prof. Draper at the CreateWorld 2008 conference held in South Bank in December of last year. A CD of the recordings will be published by QCRC in late 2009. In addition a website and further published papers are expected to be developed from this research.
Concert and launch of Sustainable Futures
On May 10, we musically launched our new ARC Linkage project Sustainable futures for music cultures: Towards an ecology of musical diversity, a five-year, five million dollar project in collaboration with the International Music Council and nine other partners aiming to provide insights and instruments that will empower communities across the world to forge musical futures on their own terms.
The concerts began with five Asian musics at the Nepalese Pagoda on South bank, moved to fusion in the outside jazz cafe just outside the Conservatorium, and concluded with Vietnamese traditional music in the Ian Hanger Recital Hall.
In addition to being the launch of the research project, the event also constituted a benefit concert to inaugurate Musical Futures, a long-term initiative designed to secure seed funding for the best projects emanating from Sustainable futures.
Mithas CD launch 2008
In May 2008, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of EXPO 88, a concert at the Nepalese Pagoda South Bank Parklands marked the launch of the CD Mithas. Sitarist Huib Schippers and tabla player Dheeraj Shrestha performed classical ragas of North India.
Jalu yinbayi CD launch 2008
In April 2008 the Sound Links team launched the CD Jalu yinbayi: The women are singing, which was recorded in 2001 by senior Yanyuwa women, adjunct Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre member Elizabeth Mackinlay, and the University of Queensland ATSIS unit. The CD was designed and produced with the assistance of Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre as a small gift to the community of Borroloola in the Northern Territory.
Inside music lectures
Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre's lectures and podcasts present an exciting exploration of the fields of musical performance and enquiry, and the synergies between them.
Lectures and podcasts 2006-2007
In the 2007 series, Visions of Utopia, Peter Roennfeldt, William Duckworth, Larry Sitsky, Judy Bailey, Gillian Whitehead, and Malcolm Gillies presented their visions on imagined musical futures from the perspective of performance, composition, music technology, higher education, and philosophy. In 2006, Huib Schippers, Peter Dunbar-Hall, Jonty Stockdale, and Erica McWilliam presented their ideas on learning and teaching music.
- Podcasts of these public lectures are available.
Inside Music 2006
These lunchtime lecture/demonstrations took a small audience into the 'kitchen' of music making. In the intimate setting of the Basil Jones Orchestral Hall, performers played and spoke on a work or topic that particularly excited them, thus unveiling what goes on in the creative minds of musicians, both before and during a performance. This series provided for a unique level of interaction with the audience.
- Peter Roennfeldt (piano) - Another Rondo - by the other Bach
- Louise Denson (jazz piano) - Improvisation, interaction, communication
- Ralph Hultgren (composer) - Music and me - self indulgence or self awareness
- Vincent Plush (composer) - Painting becomes music
- Gregory Massingham (voice) with Stephen Emmerson (piano) - Schubert's Die Winterreise
- Michael Morgan (conductor) - Not just a beginning
Artistic practice as research lectures 2004
While music is consumed first and best in live performance format, there is a fascinating world of concepts and ideas underlying every musical event. From an environment of musical practice, Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre explored this world through a series of six lectures on performance as artistic research by prominent speakers from different walks of musical life: Huib Schippers, Janet Ritterman, Zane Trow, Keith Howard, Paul Grabovsky and Andrew Ford.