Resonances: Music, Affect and the City (Berlin, Nov. 7-8)

The Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin), in cooperation with “Hearing Modernity,” is proud to present:

Resonances: Music, Affect, and the City

Thursday, November 7 – Friday, November 8, 2013

Keynote Speaker: Ingrid Monson (Harvard University)

Special sound/music Get-Together: Thursday, 9 pm at Shift event space with experimental audiovisual works (9-11 pm) and DJ sets (11 pm onward)

Organized by Luis-Manuel Garcia with Olivier Zauritz and Peter McMurray.

Details available here; program here.

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“Resonances: Music, Affect and the City,” examines how music conveys the feeling of urban life. Hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in collaboration with Harvard University, this English-language conference will take place on November 7th and 8th, 2013.

What emotional significance do music and musical instruments have for ethnic and religious minorities, such as  Berlin’s Alevi community? How do inhabitants as well as tourists identify with the feeling and sound of Berlin’s music scenes? This two-day conference, organized by the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development in collaboration with Harvard’s Sawyer Seminar, “Hearing Modernity”, seeks to explore the ways in which emotional, embodied experience intersects with sound and the urban landscape.

Although this conference places a special emphasis on Berlin’s local music scenes, scholarly presentations will range as widely as devotional music in India, indigenous music in Canadian public schools, and European Jazz Festivals. While remaining grounded in particular themes and concrete case-studies, this gathering will generate new ideas and raise new questions relevant to broader discourses of aesthetic experience, embodiment, and collective life. Further highlights the Keynote Address by Harvard jazz scholar Professor Ingrid Monson, entitled, “Improvisation and the Sensory Turn in Music Studies.”

Using “music,” “affect,” and “the city” as keywords, this conference aims to create and capture resonances between a diverse, international array of scholars and music-industry professionals. The organizers are committed to nurturing dialogue between academia and popular media, and so, in addition to scholarly presentations, this event with feature roundtable discussions with professionals from Berlin’s local music scenes. In the evenings, activities will extend into music events featuring sound installations and performances, furthering the exchange between academic theory and musical practice.

 

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