4/24/09

Music Conferences in March and April 2009

It has been a great pleasure to give presentations at five very interesting international conferences and symposia on music in Europe during March and April. Details are listed below. In May I will stay in Finland to focus on advising students and completing various writing projects.


-Paper presentation, "On Virtuality and Music Education in Online Environments," The Changing Face of Music Education: Music and Environment (CFME09) International Conference, Tallinn University, Estonia (April 23-25, 2009). [It was a pleasure to finally meet John Sloboda, Nigel Marshall, Armin Langer, Mariann Abraham, and many others. Estonian scholars Tina Selke, Gerhard Lock and their colleagues were fabulous hosts at Tallinn University.]


-Paper presentation, "Institutionalizing Popular Music Pedagogy: Lessons from Jazz Education," Sixth International Research in Music Education (RIME) Conference, University of Exeter, United Kingdom (April 14-18, 2009). [It was very nice to see my new friends from Sweden again, and also to talk with Steve Dillon, Pamela Burnard, Albert Ibanez, Liane Hentschke, Nantida Chandransu, as well as fellow Americans Marie McCarthy, Randall Allsup, Patrick Schmidt and Cathy Benedict, and all the way from Oceania, Trevor Thwaites and Kathy Marsh. Sarah Hennessy has done an amazing job with this conference over the years! It was nice to hear many good comments about the work of Sibelius Academy students.] It was also great to meet Andrew Missingham afterward in London, and we are discussing collaboration on some research and development projects in global music technology.


-Lecture on "New Music Technologies in Japan and the USA," and Workshop with Alex Ruthmann (by videoconference) on "New Technologies for Music Teaching and Learning," Nordic Network for Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics (Nordplus-funded), University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg, Denmark (March 29-April 5, 2009). [I recall that Anders Friberg and Kristoffer Jensen gave some especially informative presentations at this event.]


-Paper presentation with Marja Heimonen, "Pluralism and Minority Rights in Music Education: Implications of the Legal and Social Philosophical Dimension," Beyond Musicology - 13th Annual Finnish Musicology Symposium, University of Turku, Finland (March 26-27, 2009). [It was very interesting to talk with Tia DeNora and Richard Leppert for the first time - outstanding broad-minded scholars and genuinely nice people.]


-Presentation, "Tools for Collaboration in Online Music Communities," GLOMUS, coalition of Nordic higher education academies, steering committee meeting at Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway (March 3-4, 2009). [Founded by four Nordic higher education academies of music - Royal Danish Conservatory-Aarjus, Norwegian Academy of Music, Malmo Academy of Music, and Sibelius Academy - GLOMUS is an international network for exchange in global music and related arts.]


There is also some good news at Sibelius Academy: our Rector Gustav Djupsjobacka has been reappointed for another term of leadership, and our Dean Jari Perkiomaki is now being promoted to Vice Rector. It is likely this will lead to many positive changes in the next few years.

Also, I am excited that Alex Ruthmann and I have been asked to write a chapter on music technology for the Oxford Handbook of Music Education, a uniquely comprehensive resource that I believe will be published in late 2010.