Towards More Vari­ety in the Musi­cal Canon: The Intri­ca­cies of the “Popu­lar” and “Non-Western” as Meta­phors of Distinc­tion

CRG The Subtle Politics of (Non)Popular Music; a Global Perspective
Workshop

21. – 22. March 2024
University of Cape Town
S.A. College of Music
Room C7

In our South African-German research group “The Subtle Politics of (Un)Popular Music. A Global Perspective” we critically engage with the status of Western art music as a continuing benchmark for musical and scholarly expertise. We ask what other kinds of criteria we could turn to in order to provincialise Western art music.
In the workshop Towards More Variety in the Musical Canon, we seek to further our discussions on the intricacies of the usual distinctions between popular, traditional, western and non-western. The workshop will promote in-person theorizing on these and alternative categories of analysis such as secular and religious that might be more productive in particular case studies.

Programm

21.03.24

10:00 – 10:15

Welcome and intro­duc­tion of the parti­ci­pants

21.03.24

10:15 – 10:30

Intro­duc­tion of the CRG topic and the idea of the work­shop

21.03.24

10:30 – 11:15

Presen­ta­tion 1:

Bongiwe Nondu­miso Gumede:
To catch your prey, you must hunt - Kubamba ezin­ge­layo’

21.03.24

11:15 – 11:45

Coffee/tea break

21.03.24

11:45 – 12:30
Panel: Performing the past

Presen­ta­tion 2:

Bron­wen Clacherty:
Perfor­ming dandaro: where perfor­mance and ethno­gra­phy meet

21.03.24

12:00 – 13:15
Panel: Performing the past

Presen­ta­tion 3:

Bran­don H. Andrews:
Reima­gi­ning the sonic lands­ca­pes(s) of ance­s­tral commu­ni­ties through the musi­cal arts in the 21st century

21.03.24

13:15 – 14:30

Lunch

21.03.24

14:30 – 15:15
Panel: Labelling Music

Presen­ta­tion 4:

Theresa Nink:
Cate­go­ries in the Euro­pean/US-Ameri­can music critics’ discourse on “7 Seconds” (1994) by Yous­sou N'Dour & Neneh Cherry

21.03.24

15:15 – 16:00
Panel: Labelling Music

Presen­ta­tion 5:

Rick Deja:
“Is Popu­lar Music in Africa ‘Afri­can Popu­lar Music’? a.k.a. ‘What kind of music do they play where you’re from?’”

21.03.24

16:00 – 16:15

Coffee/tea break

21.03.24

16:15 – 17:00
Panel: Labelling Music

Presen­ta­tion 6:

Joseph Kunnuji:
An Advo­cacy for the Codi­fi­ca­tion of Ogu Musi­cal Know­ledge for the Inclu­si­vity of Know­ledge Systems in Lagos, Nige­ria

22.03.24

10:00 – 10:45
Panel: Imagining Freedom through Music

Presen­ta­tion 7:

Dion Eaby-Lomas:
Kwai­to’s Legacy of Aesthe­ti­ci­zing Free­dom: the Aesthe­tics of Amapi­ano.

22.03.24

10:45 – 11:30
Panel: Imagining Freedom through Music

Presen­ta­tion 8:

Anna Schwenck:
“Free­dom Will Come Tomor­row”: The Conti­nuous Popu­la­rity of Sara­fina and its Sound­track Thirty Years after South Afri­ca’s First Free Elec­ti­ons.

22.03.24

11:30 – 11:45

Coffee/tea break

22.03.24

11:45 – 12:30
Panel: Collaborative Music Learning

Presen­ta­tion 9:

Florian Heesch:
Deve­lo­ping Educa­ti­o­nal Spaces for New Commu­ni­ties of Prac­ti­ces: Ghanaian Highlife in a German Univer­sity

22.03.24

12:00 – 13:15
Panel: Collaborative Music Learning

Presen­ta­tion 10:

Rashid Epstein Adams:
The King­dom Is Yours: Deco­lo­ni­sing and Reima­gi­ning Chris­ti­a­nity Through. Musi­cal Expres­sion and Crea­tive Colla­bo­ra­tion

22.03.24

13:15 – 14:30

Lunch and after­wards:
Coffee/tea for end discus­sion

22.03.24

14:30 – 16:00

Discus­sion of the over­all topic in the group