The Southeast Chapter of the American Musicological Society will hold its Fall 2024 meeting, hosted by the Fletcher School of Music, at East Carolina University on Saturday, October 12. The program and abstracts are available in this PDF.
Past conference programs are available in the Meeting Archives section.
AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY — SOUTHEAST CHAPTER
FALL MEETING | 12 OCTOBER 2024
EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY
8:30-9:00 AM REGISTRATION
9:00-9:15 AM OPENING REMARKS
Christopher Ulffers, East Carolina University
9:15-10:45 AM PAPER SESSION A
Christopher Campo-Bowen, Virginia Tech
“Raisons banal”: The Critical Reception of Louise Farrenc’s Three Symphonies
J. Cameron Stephenson, East Carolina University
Active Broadcasts: Physical Fitness and Radio in 1970s Chicago
Destiny Meadows, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Intercultural Improvisation: Turkish Rule-Based Techniques and Jazz Dialogues in the Southeast U.S.
Bahar Gjuka, Independent Scholar
10:45-11:00 AM BREAK
11:00 AM-12:00 PM CHAPTER BUSINESS MEETING
12:00-2:00 PM LUNCH
2:00-3:30 PM PAPER SESSION B
Megan Francisco, Wake Forest University
“Isabella Leonarda’s Tribute to Emperor Leopold I: Political Objectives and Musical Style in the Late Seicento Motet”
Stewart Carter, Wake Forest University
“Power to Produce for Peace”: The University of Michigan Symphony Band at the 1961 Cairo Agricultural Exhibition
Kari Lindquist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Born to Run (For President): The Creation of Barack Obama’s Presidential Identity Through Bruce Springsteen’s Musical Catalog
Maureen Rafter, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
3:30-4:00 PM BREAK
4:00-4:15 PM ECU SYMPHONIC WIND ENSEMBLE: IVES, CALCIUM LIGHT NIGHT
William Staub, Conductor
4:15-5:15 PM KEYNOTE LECTURE
Decoding the Archive: Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Symphony No. 10 ‘Ameríndia,’ Ethnography, Histories, and National Narrative
Silvio dos Santos, University of Florida
ABSTRACTS
“Raisons banal”: The Critical Reception of Louise Farrenc’s Three Symphonies
J. Cameron Stephenson, East Carolina University
French symphonist Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) enjoyed a brief moment of popularity with French critics during the mid 1840s. Although much of the critical reception of her works is focused on gendered sensationalism, there were also genuine reviews that focused more on her musical talents and shortcomings and less about her sex. She also struggled to get her symphonies programmed, as several major orchestras rejected them for “raisons banal.” This paper examines the reviews of Farrenc’s symphonies from the 1840s and the possible impact they had on her compositional process. The reviews found in the French periodical Le Revue et gazette musicale de Paris will take precedence, as its founder, François-Joseph Fétis, both conducted the premiere of Farrenc’s first symphony and wrote a lengthy review of the work. This paper also builds off of literature by Bea Friedland, author of the first substantial modern scholarship on Farrenc, and Katherine Ellis, who examined the programming habits of the Société de concerts du Conservatoire, a major institution for orchestral music in Paris during the 1800s. It is my belief that the critical success of Farrenc’s first symphony inspired her more adventurous second symphony, which employed counterpoint and other aspects of the “learned style.” The second symphony received lukewarm reception, which in turn led her to be more concise and conservative with her third. Unfortunately, lack of performances and critical support resulted in her ultimately abandoning the genre after only six years despite her maturing compositional style.
Active Broadcasts: Physical Fitness and Radio in 1970s Chicago
Destiny Meadows, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In 1978, Chicago radio station WJPC held its first annual bike-hike and concert fundraiser. The event saw over 32,000 bikers and hikers moving through three neighborhoods in the city before ending the day at a free concert at Grant Park that featured Mercury recording label acts. The bikehike proved to be a success for the station. Recognizing the integral connection between music, exercise, and community participation, WJPC continued to put on similar events well into the next decade.
The WJPC bike-hike is just one of many examples of Black radio’s investment in civic involvement through physical fitness. Throughout the 1970s, Black radio stations across the US sponsored and put on physical fitness fundraising events in support of local community organizations. Black press frequently promoted these events: tennis competitions, bike-a-thons, dance-a-thons, and more. Further, stations invited music celebrities to perform, leading to a symbiotic promotional relationship for all parties involved. My research asks what role broadcast technologies, specifically radio, play in shaping conceptions of exercise in Black communities.
This paper locates Chicago Black radio as a crucial site that melded audio, physical fitness, and community participation for listeners during the 1970s. Drawing on both print and audiovisual primary source material from the period and more recent literature on Black radio (Barlow 1999, di Leonardo 2019), I argue that examining Black radio’s networks of sound and movement is critical to countering dominant scholarly narratives that primarily center white athletic practices in the history of exercise in the United States.
Intercultural Improvisation: Turkish Rule-Based Techniques and Jazz Dialogues in the Southeast U.S.
Bahar Gjuka, Independent Scholar
This paper explores the dynamics of intercultural musical collaboration between a Turkish musician and local artists from Newnan, Georgia, a town known for its emerging arts scene within the Southeastern United States. Through a series of collaborative projects, we investigated how the distinct musical backgrounds of each participant influenced the creative process and the resulting musical expressions. Drawing upon ethnographic research methods, including participant observation and in-depth interviews, the study delves into the challenges and rewards of merging disparate musical traditions.
The collaborative process highlighted the negotiation of musical identities and the creation of a shared musical language. Key themes include the adaptation of Turkish makam systems within jazz and blues frameworks, the role of improvisation as a bridge between cultures, and the impact of socio-cultural factors on musical interaction. The findings reveal that the musicians’ engagement with each other’s traditions led to innovative performances that transcended cultural boundaries while fostering mutual understanding and respect.
By examining this intercultural collaboration in the context of the Southeastern United States, the paper contributes to broader discussions on globalization, cultural exchange, and the evolving landscape of American music. It offers insights into how local musicians from Newnan incorporate global influences, thereby enriching the regional musical tapestry. This study underscores the potential of music as a medium for cross-cultural dialogue and community building in an increasingly interconnected world.
Isabella Leonarda’s Tribute to Emperor Leopold I: Political Objectives and Musical Style in the Late Seicento Motet
Stewart Carter, Wake Forest University
In 1686 Isabella Leonarda published a collection of sacred works, which she dedicated to Emperor Leopold I in honor of his victory of the Turks at Buda. Her Motetti à voce sola (Opus 12) includes thirteen solo motets, some of which are appropriately martial in style, and three sonnets dedicated to Leopold. Lorenzo Cotta’s biographical dictionary Museo novarese (1700) specifically mentions Leonarda’s motets and their connection to Leopold I. His entry concludes with a sonnet comparing Leonarda’s musical skill to the emperor’s military prowess. According to Cotta, the sonnet was presented to the emperor.
Sister Isabella may not have expected any quid pro quo from her gift to Leopold, but in 1690 she dedicated another book of solo motets to Paula Beatrice Odescalchi, niece of Pope Innocent XI and a nun in the convent of Santa Croce in Como. In her dedication, Leonarda states, “I hope … Your Excellency will content me no less in gratification of this weak offering than was given to me in similar circumstances by the Most August Leopold.” Leonarda’s dedication of her Opus 12 to Emperor Leopold thus appears to have achieved its desired result. An obscure Ursuline nun apparently succeeded in capturing the attention of the Habsburg emperor and receiving something from him—exactly what is uncertain, but probably it was financial support for her convent.
“Power to Produce for Peace”: The University of Michigan Symphony Band at the 1961 Cairo Agricultural Exhibition
Kari Lindquist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
During the ongoing Bay of Pigs invasion, on April 18, 1961, the University of Michigan Symphony Band played outside the U.S. pavilion at the Cairo Agricultural Exhibition. As part of a recordlength U.S. State Department tour, the Michigan Symphony Band made its first stop after the Soviet Union midway through the 15-week tour. According to all accounts of the concert, the band’s sound echoed back off of the metal sculpture at the entrance to the Soviet exhibit. Months before the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement, the opposition of the Cold War played out sonically in this environment dedicated to innovation in agriculture and farming. The U.S. exhibit was called “Power to Produce for Peace” with a massive two-acre display. Thus, the U.S. government aligned its Cold War musical and scientific efforts at a time of geopolitical conflict. Using this concert as a case study, I demonstrate how sound and music were entwined with the physical environment of the Cairo Agricultural Exhibition.
Applying archival methods and media analysis, I explore silent film footage to imagine the multifaceted soundscape of the Agricultural Exhibition. Using scholarship on sound in Cairo by Fahmy (2020) and the role of sound in public space by Abe (2018) and Sakakeeny (2013), I investigate how the band’s outdoor concert commanded public space. By exploring how the band interacted in Cairo, I situate wind band music as crucial to the sonic encounters between these musicians and their hosts/audiences during the Cold War.
Born to Run (For President): The Creation of Barack Obama’s Presidential Identity Through Bruce Springsteen’s Musical Catalog
Maureen Rafter, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Music has played a long-standing role in American presidential campaigns since the mid-19th century. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, however, the soundscape of presidential campaigns began to rely more on pre-existing popular music than tailor-made jingles as they did in the past. In her 2016 article “Keepin’ it Real (Respectable)…”, musicologist Dana Gorzelany-Mostak of Trax on the Trail, a database that tracks the use of music in presidential
campaigns, analyzes Obama’s engagement with different artists, ranging from Beyonce to Stevie Wonder, to prove his credibility as a candidate with Black voters. This research builds from that by examining Obama’s substantial engagement with rock artist Bruce Springsteen. Rock and Springsteen, as I demonstrate, allowed Obama to simultaneously appeal to a different demographic while forming a sense of presidential identity based on the preconceived notions of who a president was. My project tests this hypothesis by analyzing Obama’s engagement with Springsteen beginning with his 2008 campaign and continuing through to the present day as he seeks to secure his historical legacy as the nation’s first Black president. To support this, I analyze the use of
Springsteen’s music on the campaign trail, Springsteen’s personal engagement with the campaign, and consider the electoral gain the Obama campaign had by interacting with Springsteen on the trail. This research argues that Barack Obama’s relationship with Bruce Springsteen on the campaign trail
provided him with proximity to white masculinity, responding to nativist attacks against him and contributing to the formation of his presidential identity.
Keynote: Decoding the Archive: Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Symphony No. 10 ‘Ameríndia,’
Ethnography, Histories, and National Narrative
Silvio dos Santos, University of Florida
Commissioned to compose his Symphony No. 10, “Ameríndia” (1952-1954), for the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the city of São Paulo, Villa-Lobos conducted extensive research on ethnographies and historical accounts of contact and assimilation. In the Symphony, the presumably nomadic Indigenous peoples of Brazil are depicted as progressing from non-linguistic phonetic sounds to Indigenous languages documented by Bavarian zoologist Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix and botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius around 1817-20 (Spix and Martius 1831). After undergoing a “miraculous conversion” or assimilation, they emerge fully “civilized” singing in Latin (the embodiment of Christianity) and finally Portuguese (signifying the birth of a Brazilian nation).
The resignification of languages, I argue, demands a critique of nationalistic expressions, particularly those based on genetic determinism and historicist models. My archival research demonstrates that the purported Indigenous languages used in the symphony were transformed into concepts that reinforce stereotypes and othering in depictions of Indigenous peoples and ultimately glorify settler colonialism. Recognizing, as Tuhiwai Smith (2021) does, that Western knowledge is “given the authority of truth” (76-77), especially in historical narratives, I challenge past and current approaches to scholarship and performance of Villa-Lobos and his music and suggest ways to deconstruct colonial ideologies in the discipline.
Biography
Silvio dos Santos is Associate Professor of Musicology and Head of the Musicology and Ethnomusicology programs at the University of Florida. He specializes in European and Latin American music from the nineteenth century to the present, focusing on issues related to music, indigeneity, and cultural identity. He is the recipient the 2002 Paul A. Pisk Award from the American Musicological Society, as well as several research grants. He is author ofNarratives of Identities in Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’ (University of Rochester Press, 2014), articles in the Journal of Musicology, Notes, the second edition of the American Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and a chapter in the Cambridge Companion to Serialism, ed. Martin Iddon (2023). He is currently working on a book entitled Heitor Villa-Lobos: Music, Nationalism, and the Indigenous Other, which examines nationalist narratives in Villa-Lobos’s depiction of historical contact between colonial forces and Indigenous peoples in the Americas in his late works.