Caribbean and Latin American Music Study Day

Saturday 12 November 2011
University of Huddersfield
School of Music, Humanities and Media, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH

Guest Speaker Dr Henry Stobart (Royal Holloway, University of London)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The study of music from the Caribbean and Latin America has tended in the past to remain the preserve of ethnomusicologists and those writing on popular music. This study day intends to extend this area of academic research by also focussing on practice-led research in this area. In addition to historiographic and ethnomusicological studies on Caribbean and Latin American music forms we hope to incorporate performance as a main element. Alongside paper presentations we encourage submissions for lecture recitals and short performances. The aim is to bring together researchers from the fields of performance, musicology and ethnomusicology to enable new ways of researching this subject.

Possible music areas in a range of national settings could include:

• Tango in Buenos Aires or elsewhere in the world
• Cuban musics
• Brazilian musics
• English-speaking Caribbean forms (such as pan, soca, reggae and calypso)
• Salsa (in all its manifestations)
• Traditional and Modern Latin American forms from Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia etc
• Jazz from the Caribbean

Although not restricted to specific themes, possible topics could include:

• Performance as research
• Exoticism in Latin American music
• Approaches to the analysis of world musics
• The influence of Latin music on popular Anglo-American styles
• A critique of participant-observer methods of ethnomusicological fieldwork
• Film music
• The spiritual in the secular
• Migration and trans-cultural exchange
• Cultural policy and how it affects musicians’ lives on the ground
• The African aesthetic in New World forms
• The relationship between Iberian and New World musical forms
• Latin American music in the global marketplace

Abstracts of no more than 200 words are invited for papers (20 minutes duration followed by 10 minutes for questions) and for lecture presentations or performances (30 minutes with 15 minutes for questions).

Abstracts need to be submitted by the 15 of September 2011 to Sue Miller s.miller@charangasue.com for consideration by the programme committee. Proposals from those pursuing practice-led research are particularly welcome.

Conference committee:
Jessica Quiñones (University of Huddersfield),  Sue Miller (University of Leeds), Rachel Hayward (City University)

See http://www.rma.ac.uk/conferences for further details

I’ll be directing the Leeds University School of Music Cuban Music Big Band in a concert at Clothworkers Hall, Leeds University School of Music on Friday 12 March. Its  part of the  rush hour concert series  and  starts at 6pm – more info at  University of Leeds concerts

Do come along and enjoy some Mambo, Chachachá, Danzón, Son Montuno and Big Band sounds!

I am currently teaching Cuban music courses for undergraduates at the University of Leeds and flute, saxophone and piano at Yorkshire College of Music and Drama Yorkshire College of Music.

I will also be musical director of a course in traditional Cuban dance music in Havana in December 2010 (alongside veteran Charanga and Son musicians) so do contact me via the contacts page if you’re interested in this . Here is a video of me rehearsing for the first time with some of the tutors for this course – Zenen Arrascaeta on timbales, Cana on piano, Pedro on bass and Ernesto Oviedo vocals – the room was very reverberant so the sound is washy but you can see Zenen clearly having some fun with me on the improvised breaks and mambitos!

Richard Egues and Sue Miller

I am currently undertaking a PhD part-time at the University of Leeds, UK, where I combine my practical work as a performer with more traditional research methods. In addition to a written thesis my work  involves recording in the studio and live at concerts,  where analysis, commentary and transcription of flute improvisations link in to this practical side. My research therefore  covers various academic areas such as music analysis, improvisation, ethnomusicology and performance.

My thesis title is ‘Flute Improvisation in Cuban Charanga performance, with a specific focus on the work of Richard Egües and Orquesta Aragón.’

I am supervised at the University of Leeds  School of Music by  Dr Luke Windsor (Psychology of Music and Performance)  Dr Luke Windsor

You can view the School of Music postgraduate students’ blog at this site: Music Postgraduates Blog

Gladys and Richard Egües with Sue Miller in April 2001