Music, Sound, and Trauma: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Jillian C. Rogers
musicsoundtraumaconf2021.com
From police brutality, the global refugee crisis, and mass shootings, to PTSD, trigger warnings, and the #MeToo movement, recent discourse has concentrated on the traumatizing effects of living in and with violence in the contemporary world. Family members, loved ones, psychologists, and educators have been considering how to support people who have experienced different kinds of trauma—from psychological and physical trauma to cultural trauma and the insidious trauma of living in societies that are structurally unequal. Music and sound have long intertwined with trauma, not only in acts of mourning, resistance, and healing, but also in causing or contributing to trauma. Although music and sound scholars have begun to address these connections in articles, book projects, and conferences, there has not yet been an interdisciplinary conference in North America devoted to the topic of music, sound, and trauma. More here.
American Handel Society Conference
Ayana O. Smith
americanhandelsociety.org/events
Every two years, the American Handel Society sponsors a conference and festival, featuring papers and panel discussions by an international gathering of scholars and performers. During the conference, the society also presents the Howard Serwer Lecture, given by a distinguished scholar in the field.
Bloomington Bach Cantata Project
Daniel R. Melamed
@BloomingtonBachCantataProject
The Bloomington Bach Cantata Project brings together students, faculty, and professional artists from around the region to present J.S. Bach’s cantatas in performances modeled on his own. Now it its 11th season, the BBCP has presented more than 60 cantatas in collaboration with Bloomington Early Music, the IU Historical Performance Institute, and St. Thomas Lutheran Church. For more information and a season calendar, please visit the BBCP on Facebook.
Inclusive Early Music
Giovanni Zanovello, Erika Honisch (Stony Brook University)
Graduate Assistant: Deanna Pellerano
inclusiveearlymusic.org
Prof. Giovanni Zanovello, in collaboration with Erika Supria Honisch (Stony Brook University), created an online resources for instructors who are interested in teaching music history more inclusively. The goal was to pool articles, books, and images that had worked in the classroom, and ultimately share ideas for assignments, lecture notes, and more. A little collective took shape, growing slowly but steadily through word of mouth, and has now amassed a rich array of sources.
Weird Studies Podcast
Phil Ford, J.F. Martel (filmmaker)
Graduate Assistant: Meredith K. Michael
weirdstudies.com
Professor Phil Ford and writer/filmmaker J. F. Martel host a series of conversations on art and philosophy, dwelling on ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call “reality.” To learn more about the Weird Studies podcast, visit their website.
Opera Insights
Each year, IU Musicology students work to prepare program notes and pre-show lectures for the opera productions at the IU Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater. Lectures generally take place one hour before showtime in the Musical Arts Center.
Digital Humanities
Musicians in Venice
Mollie Ables (PhD, 2016)
musiciansinvenice.com/dissertation
A visualization of musicians’ networks in sacred institutions surrounding Giovanni Legrenzi’s Venetian career was developed by Mollie Ables. Her data, derived from extensive archival research, relates institutions associated with Giovanni Legrenzi, a prominent musician in late seventeenth-century: the Fava Church, the Ospedali dei Derelitti and Mendicanti, the Basilica di San Marco, and the Sovvegno di Santa Cecilia.
Troubadour Melodies Database
Katie Chapman (PhD, 2019)
troubadourmelodies.org
Katie Chapman’s Troubadour Melodies Database includes transcriptions of the extant troubadour melodies from the 13th- and 14th-century manuscripts which preserve the tradition. The melodies are encoded using alphanumeric strings designed for the font Volpiano, developed to encode chant. The TMD also gives basic information on the manuscripts and troubadours, tables of concordances, and can be browsed by troubadour, manuscript, genre, and catalog number.
Network a la Russe
Alexis Witt (PhD, 2018)
networksalarusse.com/network
Alexis Witt constructed a network graph, categorizing the relationships among these individuals and performance companies into broad types, such as those between teacher and pupils or between family members, as well as those that were business arrangements between artists and patrons, or artistic collaborations between performers
Jewish Life in Interwar Lódź
Halina Goldberg
jewish-lodz.iu.edu
Professor Halina Goldberg is project director for Jewish Life in Interwar Łódź, a multifaceted website that combines the functions of a virtual museum, a digital archive, an online exhibit, and a platform for scholarly communication.