Chinese Musicology Event in Xiamen

 

I look forward to an upcoming weekend trip in May to Xiamen, China, where I am an Invited Speaker for what promises to be a landmark event in the history of Chinese music scholarship. This conference celebrates the publication of a unique 18-volume encyclopedia in Chinese language on the history of ideas in Chinese music disciplines, edited by my long-time collaborator Professor Jiaxing Xie of China Conservatory. The encyclopedia comes with an array of digital resources and is likely to be quite impactful for many years. 

Xie and I have given several presentations together at international conferences on the theme of digital transformations in music education and we are co-authoring a book in English that is related to this project. A select group of notable music researchers from various countries are invited for the conference and I eagerly look forward to our discussions in Xiamen at Jimei University.

Click HERE for further details about this conference (in Chinese), which includes notable guests such as Victor Fung (South Florida), Pamela Burnard (Cambridge), Alex Ruthmann (NYU), and Bo-wah Leung (Hong Kong).

Click HERE for the final conference report (in Chinese). Interestingly, this was my second major conference this year in which I was the only non-Chinese live participant. 

 

Online Cafe: History of Music Education

I look forward to hosting the next Online Cafe of the International Society for Music Education. As Chair of ISME's History Standing Committee, I was invited to develop this event, and asked one of the HSC's most active members Craig Resta to serve as co-host. 

We are hopeful this event will generate more interest in how we can better understand issues and practices in institutions through a historical perspective. Below are details:  

UPDATE: Click HERE to access a video of this event.

 

Next ISME Online Cafe: 

How History Matters in Music Education: Opportunities and Methods  

Hosts: David G. Hebert and Craig Resta 

Schedule: Tuesday, 30 April '24 at 16:00 Paris Time

Concept: 

History enables us to understand conditions, practices and issues in music education, how and why they have changed across time, and to see new possibilities for the future. History tells the stories of music education. What are the meaningful stories from your personal and professional life in music? In this interactive session, presenters and participants will explore how history can influence and impact (your) music teaching and learning.

The ISME Online Cafes are offered as free outreach, so anyone can join. They last for about two hours. Details can be obtained by scanning the QR code in the poster displayed above. 

Twentieth Anniversary Conference in Poznan

 

Recently I returned to Bergen, Norway after participating in the 20-year jubilee event of the Musica Practica Musica Theoretica series at the Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznan, Poland. At this international symposium, it was exciting to see some recent developments in music scholarship coming from Poland and nearby countries. This series of annual events has been organized and hosted by Mikolaj Rykowski and colleagues at the academy across recent years and was founded by his mentor at the academy. 

Poznan is a lovely place (central square pictured here), and as Mikolaj and I noticed when we worked together on the book Music Glocalization, it was also the birthplace of sociologist and globalization theorist Zygmunt Bauman. It was a pleasure to give a presentation in Poznan on methods for research on revival of ancient music, as well as to chair a session on “Artistic Research and Other Methodologies” and participate as a panelist in the concluding plenary discussion on Artistic Research Methods in Music along with Stefan Ostersjo, Mikolaj Rykowski and others. Some of the ideas we discussed are described at length in the book Shared Listenings, although the panel was not specifically about intercultural projects. 

Earlier, I gave a guest lecture, “Research in International Music Education: Issues and Methods”, for the music Master program at Beijing Normal University-Zhuhai campus, and I look forward to returning to China later this year.

In Bergen we are now preparing a PhD course for Bergen Summer Research School and developing multiple new PhD courses through the Global Competence Partnership project.