Publications « CharangaSue.com

Review of Charanga del Norte gig Wakefield Jazz Club

The Whitman Review: Charanga del Norte at Wakefield Jazz Club on 20 October 2023
“The tight interaction of the rhythm instruments—always percussion-rich but not percussion-heavy—is what drives the music forward. Sue Miller’s stamina was as remarkable as the quality of her flute-playing, since she was responsible for sustaining a clear and arresting melodic line above the sheer breadth and force of the rest of the band. Improvisationally, too, her flute playing was a wonderful demonstration of the possibilities that a truly creative player can open up.”

New Review of Improvising Sabor – Cuban Dance Music in New York

A new review by Professor Jairo Moreno of Sue Miller’s book Improvising Sabor – Cuban Dance Music in New York (University Press of Mississippi, 2021) https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/I/Improvising-Sabor

“This is strong historical work, joining a distinguished set of revisionary histories of New York City “Latin” music such as Salsa Rising (Juan Flores, 2016) and Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music (David Garcia, 2006)—research that offers a rich, inclusive, and diverse understanding of one of the great musical developments of twentieth-century American, Caribbean, and Latin American music.”

Conference – Broadening Music Performance in Higher Education 26 &27 June CfP

This conference aims to address three overarching but inter-related questions:

How can we broaden the nature and scope of music performance (of any genre) in meaningful, inclusive and caring ways?
How can we strengthen community and belonging through music performance, in the face of adversity and unpredictability in higher education?
How can the provision of music performance within HE, or other settings relevant for performers’ training, adapt and respond to some of today’s complex challenges?
This event is open to audiences both within and outside of higher education or academia. From the higher education sector, participants may include music educators, instrumental/vocal tutors (engaged within HE) and researchers at any stage in their career.

Teaching music theory in UK higher education today: contexts and commentaries

Teaching music theory in UK higher education today: contexts and commentaries
This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues raised in relation to a selection of prior contributions to Music Education Research and comparing approaches to music literacy and theory teaching as represented in recent music theory conferences in the UK and the United States.

New Book on Serge Gainsbourg

“Latin” Gainsbourg and the Parisian Nightclub Scene

Sue Miller (Leeds Becket University)

That Serge Gainsbourg made use of Cuban music on recordings such as “Mambo Miam Miam” (mambo/chachachá), “L’Eau à la Bouche” and “Cha cha cha du Loup” (chachachá), and “Couleur Café” (Cuban son), is well known. Perhaps less explored, at least in terms of musical influence, is Gainsbourg’s background as a performer and musical director within the 1950s Paris nightclub scene and the important role his father Joseph Ginsburg had on his musical development. Both Joseph and Serge (Lucien) Ginsburg worked in Paris cabarets and the history of live music in Paris therefore holds a key to understanding Gainsbourg’s eclectic artistic output.

Sue Miller Digital Portfolio

I am known as both an academic and as a professional flute improviser and musical director of ‘Charanga del Norte,’ a band I formed in 1998.

I am many things – an academic, a writer, a professional musician, a linguist (French, Spanish, Hindi, Linguistics) and a teacher; I combine my professional work as a performer with my academic career.

Inaugural Professorial Lecture by Professor Sue Miller

Hiding in plain sight, Latin influence is everywhere in jazz and popular music forms today and often goes unacknowledged. In her Inaugural lecture Professor Sue Miller demonstrates how these Latin styles evolved historically and shows, through musical examples, how many aspects of these performance practices are embedded in a variety of vernacular dance music forms past and present.

Journal Article on Richard Egues and Rafael Bacallao in Ethnomusicology Forum Journal

An article co-authored by Professor Sue Miller, Guillermo Davis and Dr Sarah Bowen is published in a special issue of the journal Ethnomusicology Forum (June 2022). In it the flute solo of Richard Egües together with the dancing of Rafael Bacallao in Orquesta Aragon are analysed and the article is open access available here online […]

Review of Improvising Sabor – Cuban Dance Music in New York

A review of Sue Miller’s book Improvising Sabor – Cuban Dance Music in New York by Sara McGuinness has been published in Ethnomusicology Forum journal and is available online here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17411912.2021.1989174

A musico-choreographic analysis of a Cuban dance routine: a performance-informed approach

The research is based on the analysis of a live performance on Cuban television of ‘Los Problemas de Atilana’ by Orquesta Aragón in the early 1960s, where musical gestures are shown to be embodied in the flute and dance solo ‘duet’ performed by Cuban flautist Richard Egües and dancer Rafael Bacallao, revealing the shared memories of a community bound by common cultural experience. Interdisciplinary in nature, analysis is undertaken by a musician-scholar, a film scholar-practitioner and a professional Cuban dancer-animator in order to unearth details of this embodied repertoire, thus translating and making overt culturally implicit knowledge for those outside of the artistic community of practice, and, in some cases, within it.

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