Seminars

Cross-Disciplinary Interplay between the

Humanities, Technology and Musical Practice

Thursday, April 28, 2:15 p.m. - 4 p.m. in U70. Guest lecture.

The Cultural, Aesthetic and Historical Significance of the Piano with Jan Beck Eriksson

Jan Beck Eriksson played a key role in the choice of the superb Steinway grand which has made the Lunchtime Concert series here at SDU possible. After the Lunchtime Concert during which he will be performing, Jan will be the speaker at the final seminar for the spring term in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound. The seminar will commence at 14:15 in U70 on April 28, 2011. Since the presentation deals with the cultural, aesthetic and historical significance of the piano, Jan will also present the seminar audience with a detailed examination of the Steinway grand, which will take place in Cafeteria 4 where the grand piano will be standing for a while after the concert for this purpose.

Thursday, April 28, 2011 is the final Lunchtime Concert  for the spring term and the tenth in the series since its premiere on April 29, 2010. We celebrate this anniversary with a Lunchtime Concert (see here) featuring Jan Beck Eriksson, prize-winning pianist (graduate of The Royal Danish Academy of Music). In true Lunchtime Concert tradition, Jan will offer a musical buffet of some of the best-loved music composed for the piano by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Sinding, Grieg and Gershwin.

From 1989 to the present day Jan Beck Eriksson has been affiliated with the piano merchandising firm Juhl-Sørensen A/S (http://www.piano.dk) and is currently head of sales in the Copenhagen division. Through his work with Juhl-Sørensen A/S, which represents the piano manufacturer Steinway & Sons in Denmark and Sweden, Jan has become a well-known figure within the Nordic music milieu and is a regarded as specialist with respect to all aspects of the piano.

This seminar is co-organized with NTSMB: Netværk for Tværvidenskabelige Studier af Musik og Betydning/Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning: www.ntsmb.dk.

Downloadable poster/program in pdf-format here.

Thursday, April 14, 2:15 p.m. - 4 p.m. in U70. Guest lecture (via Skype)

Music, Logic and Language with Daniel Bonevac

Daniel Bonevac is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also Co-founder and Principle Advocate of BriefLogic. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, majored in philosophy at Haverford College, and got his MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, working primarily with Wilfrid Sellars, Gerald Massey, and Carl Hempel.

Professor Bonevac's research focuses on the intersection of metaphysics, philosophical logic, and ethics. His first book, Reduction in the Abstract Sciences, received the Johnsonian Prize from The Journal of Philosophy. He has written four other books-- Deduction, The Art and Science of Logic, Simple Logic, and Worldly Wisdom-- and edited or co-edited four others-- Today's Moral Issues,  Beyond the Western Tradition, Understanding Non-Western Philosophy, and Introduction to World Philosophy (the last three with Stephen Phillips). He is currently completing a book with Casey Jones, and is also writing a book on moral reasoning entitled Ways of the World.

Daniel Bonevac is also passionately interested in music and plays several instruments in addition to being an active ensemble singer. During today's seminar, the relationships (or lack thereof!) between music, language and logic will be explored and analyzed.

Seminar program/poster here.

Thursday, March 17, 2:15 p.m.- 4 p.m. in U70. Guest lecture (via Skype) 

Soul from Plato to Motown with Joel Rudinow, author of Soul Music: Tracking the Spiritual Roots of Pop from Plato to Motown (2010, The University of Michigan Press).

Soul music – a style of popular music that originated in America and flourished during the middle of the 20th century – combines African American gospel music with the blues - sources that are said and sincerely believed by many to be “spiritually incompatible.”  What does it mean for different styles of music – especially styles as closely and intimately related as gospel music and the blues - to be “spiritually at odds” with each other?  Can music have “spiritually therapeutic” effects? Can music have “spiritually toxic” effects? Exploring this labyrinthine nest of questions takes us into:

● Some of America’s most intriguing cultural history, deconstructing the mythology of the blues as the “devil’s music”;

● One of music theory’s deepest controversies: music’s mysterious capacity to move and direct emotional energy, apparently without rational mediation;

● An effort to recover and restore a body of ancient wisdom from Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy (Pythagorean tuning theory) as applied to a crucial and central element of blues tonality (the tritone – or “devil’s interval”), and in this connection, a re-examination of Platonic “formalism” and its limitations, and a re-appreciation of some crucial dimensions of Plato’s philosophy.

● Finally, at the heart of the labyrinth, a critical examination of clinical applications of music in medicine, which I argue are presently hampered by explanatory hypotheses too heavily invested in psychopharmacology, and would be better advanced by a shift of emphasis toward the metaphysics of energy.   

Joel Rudinow teaches philosophy and popular culture at Santa Rosa Junior College in northern California, where he also moonlights as a musician.  He is co-author of Invitation to Critical Thinking (now in its 6th edition) and Ethics and Values in the Information Age (both published by Wadsworth/Cengage).  His philosophical essays have appeared in Analysis, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Critical Inquiry, Educational Leadership, Ethics, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Philosophy and Literature, The Philosophical Quarterly, and Sophia.  His most recent book is entitled Soul Music: Tracking the Spiritual Roots of Pop from Plato to Motown, published by the University of Michigan Press.

Seminar program/poster available here.

Thursday, February 10, 2:15 p.m.-4 p.m. in U70.

Aspects of the Philosophy of Musical Performance - Panel Presentation and Discussion

Gustav Krogh Hansen Piekut, pianist. Please see HERE for the poster and program for Gustav's Lunchtime Concert 12 noon - 1:00 p.m.

William Westney,HCA Academy Guest Professorial Fellow SDU 2009-10, pianist – via Skype from Texas. Please see HERE for background on William Westney. 

Søren R. Frimodt-Møller , PhD Philosophy SDU 2010. Please see www.orkesterfilosofi.dk

Cynthia M. Grund, Associate Professor of Philosophy, SDU. Please see www.cynthiamgrund.dk, moderator.

All four panelists are active as musical performers and are engaged in reflection about the practice of musical performance - and by the time of today's presentation and discussion, all will have given lunchtime concerts at SDU. (Please see HERE.)

The Lunchtime Concert at SDU is a radical recontextualiztion of the acoustic piano concert and piano ensemble concert. A Steinway grand piano is rolled into the midst of a university cafeteria at the busiest time of the day, and a full-blown concert is given. The atmosphere is as foreign to that of the conventional concert hall as can be imagined. (For those who speak Danish, it is instructive to watch the television documentary "Musik for folket/Music for the People" on SDU's lunchtime concert series which aired on November 22-29, 2010 on ALTV and is available HERE.) Today's lunchtime concert is the seventh which has been offered at SDU since April 2010. It has been interesting - and gratifying - to see how both performers and audience  react to this form of musical presentation.

The insights that may be gained from recontextualizing performance situations are among the topics dealt with as part of the field research that is currently taking place in the Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics – NNIMIPA – www.nnimipa.org - which is headquartered at SDU, with Grund as its chief coordinator. The panelists will discuss and present aspects of this work during today's seminar.

Audience members who would like to prepare themselves for participation in today's discussion are also welcome to look at JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning www.musicandmeaning.net and www.jmm.musicandmeaning.net, which is published at the Insitute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions at SDU.

The poster for the seminar is available HERE.

 

Institute of Philosophy,  Education and the Study of Religions   Research Director for The Aesthetics of Music and Sound and  Editor and Webmaster for www.soundmusicresearch.org: Cynthia M. Grund cmgrund@ifpr.sdu.dk     Updates   Archive for "Updates": Click HERE.     February 19, 2012: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound Wagner and Žižek on the Revolutionary Potential of Music, presented via Skype  by Tere Vadén, Professor, Department of Art, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Helsinki.Thursday, February 23, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for the seminar available HERE. This is the second seminar in a series of 13 seminars during the spring. For series information and updates, please see HERE.   February 12, 2012: Concert: Thursday, February 16, 2012, 12  noon - 1 p.m.  in Cafeteria 4, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Sound Seeds: Live Concert with Jensen-Georges. Concert poster available HERE. Concert program available HERE. Followed by a seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound with Kristoffer Jensen, Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University Esbjerg, and Laurent "Saxi" Georges, musician, composer, researcher. The seminar is entitled Sonification: From Signal to Sound and takes place, Thursday, February 16, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for the seminar available HERE. This is the second seminar in a series of 13 seminars during the spring. For series information and updates, please see HERE.   February 3, 2012: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound with Composing as Adventurous Applied Science , presented by Jan Flessel, composer and instrumentalist, Thursday, February 9, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for the seminar available HERE. This is the second seminar in a series of 13 seminars during the spring. For series information and updates, please see HERE.   January 31 2012: The spring semester 2012 begins on February 1, 2012 in Denmark, and we get off to a running start on February 2 in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound with On Sound Segregation and Music, presented by Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard, PhD, Associate Professor, Center for Sound Communication, Institute of Biology, University of Southern Denmark on Thursday, February 2, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for the seminar available HERE. This is the first in a series of 13 seminars during the spring. For series information and updates, please see HERE.   December 31, 2011: The Aesthetics of Music and Sound wishes everyone a very Happy New Year and hopes that 2012 will be a healthy and rewarding year for all!   January is examination month at Danish universities and the spring term officially begins on February 1. Please watch the website for updates regarding activities during 2012.   December 12, 2011: Concert: Thursday, December 15, 2011, 12  noon - 1 p.m.  in Cafeteria 4, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Nu er det jul with Nikolaj Nottlemann, tenor, and Cynthia M. Grund, piano. Concert poster available HERE. Concert program available HERE.   December 12, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound, Thursday, December 15, 2011, 2:15 -4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55.  5230 Odense M.   Sigrún Lilja Einarsdóttir, PhD student in Sociology – University of Exeter, England; Part time lecturer – Bifröst University, Iceland. Presentation via Skype: Bach in Everyday Life: ´Choral Capital´As Well-Being and the Socio-Musical Identities of Amateur Choristers Who Perform Art Music. Abstract available HERE. Poster for the seminar available HERE.   December 7, 2011: ArtsIT-Second International ICST Conference on Arts and Technology, December 7-8, Esbjerg, Denmark. http://artsit.org/show/home   November 25, 2011:Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound, Thursday, December 1, 2011, 2:15 -4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55.  5230 Odense M. David Clowney, Associate Professor, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA  presents a talk entitled Limits, Risks and Accomplishment in Musical Performance. Via Skype. Abstract available HERE. Poster for the seminar available HERE.    November 18, 2011: Concert: Thursday, November 24, 2011, 12  noon - 1 p.m.  in Cafeteria 4, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Pianist and Professor William Westney plays a program of Bach, Scriabin, Albeniz and Brahms..Concert poster available HERE. Concert program available HERE.   November 18, 2011:Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound, Thursday, November 24, 2011, 2:15 -4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55.  5230 Odense M. William Westney (Texas Tech U) and Cynthia M. Grund (SDU) present a talk entitled David Hume's Theories of Beauty and Utility Applied to Issues of Musical Performance – A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue. Abstract available HERE. Poster for the seminar available HERE.      November 18, 2011:  New Directions in Musical Performance. Workshop and seminar in the Concert Hall, Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Southern Denmark/Syddansk Musikkonservatorium og Skuespillerskole (AMDA/SMKS), Islandsgade 2, Odense, Denmark. 9:30 -14:00,  November 21, 2011. For details, please see HERE.   November 14, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound, Thursday, November 17, 2011, 2:15 -4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55.  5230 Odense M. We welcome Catherine Z. Elgin, Professor of the Philosophy of Education, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, who will present a talk entitled Two Dogmas and the Arts via Skype. Abstract available HERE. Poster for the seminar available HERE.     At 7:30 p.m. on November 17, 2011, William Westney will be giving a concert in the Concert Hall at the The Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Southern Denmark (AMDA), Islandsgade 2, 5000 Odense C. William Westney is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Piano and Browning Artist-in-Residence, School of Music, Texas Tech University and was appointed H.C. Andersen Visiting Professorial Fellow at The University of Southern Denmark during the 2009-2010 academic year, affiliated with The Aesthetics of Music and Sound. Dr. Westney's program will include works by Bach, Albeniz, Brahms and Scriabin. For detailed program, please see HERE. For more information on Dr. Westney, please see HERE.     November 6, 2011: Concert: Thursday, November 10, 2011, 12  noon - 1 p.m.  in Cafeteria 4, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Pianist Morten Heide plays a program of character pieces, the titles of which suggest that they have been inspired by the song of birds or the sounds of flowing water..Concert poster available HERE. Concert program available HERE.   The concert will be filmed for television broadcast and is followed by a seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound entitled: The Cognitive Semantics of Musical Tension with Jens Hjortkjær, PhD, Research Assistant, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. The seminar will take place on Thursday, November 10,  2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for the seminar available HERE.   October 29, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound- Romantic Ballet: Features, Conventions and Narratives with Dr. Astrid Bernkopf, Programme Leader Dance Studies, Dept. of Performing Arts, Middlesex U., Trent Park Campus, London. Presentation via Skype. Audience participation via Skype also welcome. Thursday, November 3, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for seminar available HERE.   October 7, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound - Musicianship, Musical Interpretation, and Cultural Identity: Challenges for Philosophy and the Social Sciences with David G. Hebert, PhD, Professor of Music, Grieg Academy, Faculty of Education, Bergen University College. Presentation via Skype.Thursday, October 13, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for seminar available HERE.   October 2, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound - Goals for Cross-Disciplinary Research and Education in Music and IT with Dr. Barry Eaglestone, Senior  Lecturer, U of Sheffield, UK (RetiredI). Presentation via Skype.Thursday, October 6, 2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for seminar available HERE.   September 26, 2011: A TV-documentary in English about a Lunchtime Concert with pianist Gustav Krogh Hansen Piekut earlier this year at The University of Southern Denmark, SDU, at Odense airs throughout the week of September 26 - October 2, 2011 on ALT, Aabenraa Lokal TV on the TV Sønderjylland (TV-SDJ) network. The program will be permanently available HEREand during the broadcast week also HERE.  In addition to concert clips, the program features interviews in which Gustav Krogh Hansen Piekut, Assoc. Prof. Cynthia M. Grund and Søren R. Frimodt-Møller, PhD participate.   September 24, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound - Norms of the Performance Context with Søren R. Frimodt-Møller, PhD. Thursday, September 29  2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for seminar available HERE.   Public lecture in fulfillment of the requirements for the magister degree. Stud.mag. Daniel Frandsen holds a public lecture addressing the following topic: Discuss the role played by authenticity in analysis of musical meaning and of musical value, taking into account considerations involving the connection between aesthetic value and ethical value. The lecture will be given in English and takes place on Friday, September 30 at 1:15 p.m. in U150, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M.   September 20, 2011: Musikkens og lydens æstetik: en tværvidenskabelig tilgang til nutidens Parnassus/The Aesthetics of Music and Sound: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to a Present-Day Parnassus with Cynthia M. Grund. Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy, University of Southern Denmark at Odense.  Opening lecture for the fall 2011 semester, Netværk for Kvinder i Filosofiske Fag (KIFF), Friday, September 23, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m, Room 1467-517, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, followed by a reception. Poster available HERE.   September 16, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound - Immanuel Kant and Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought withTomas McAuley, PhD Candidate, Department of Music, King's College, London (via Skype). Thursday, September 22  2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for seminar available HERE.   September 16, 2011: With all that has been going on as the fall semester gets off to a start, we neglected to include this important update! The website for JMM10, the tenth issue of The Journal of Music and Meaning www.musicandmeaning.net was launched on July 20, 2011. From this issue and onwards, JMM will publish articles as they become camera-ready - a publication strategy we call ”rolling publication”. Two articles are already online and more are on their way.      We are also delighted to announce that the Danish Council for Independent Research| Humanities (FKK) has recently renewed its support for JMM with a grant of 90,000 Danish crowns (ca. 17,000 US dollars at current rates of exchange) for 2011/2012, 2012/2013 and 2013/2014. All of us at JMM are very grateful to FKK for its continuing support.       September 9, 2011: Seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound - Markerless Motion Capture withAlex Czarowicz, Vice President of Sales for Organic Motion, Thursday, September 15  2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for seminar available HERE. The abstract for the presentation is available HERE.   September 2, 2011: Welcome back from summer vacation! Updates are now in the process of being uploaded throughout the site. Please pay special attention to the "kick-off" for both the lunchtime concert series and the seminar series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound on September 8:   Concert: Thursday, September 8, 2011, 12  noon - 1 p.m.  in Cafeteria 4, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Tango quintet RABO DEL GATO plays a program of Astor Piazzolla's tango compositions. Concert poster available HERE. Flyer introducing RABO DEL GATO (in Danish) HERE.     The concert will be filmed for television broadcast and is followed by a seminar in the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound entitled: Lyric and Meaning in Tango’s Poetry with Claudio Cifuentes-Aldunate, Associate Professor of Spanish at The University of Southern Denmark. The seminar will take place on Thursday, September 8  2:15 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in U73, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M. Poster for the seminar available HERE.   June 26, 2011: Four-day multi-event in London June 30-July 3 on the occasion of the inaugural annual conference of the RMA-MPSG which will be held at King’s College London on 1-2 July 2011. See HERE.     Archive   for "Updates": Click HERE.   (Includes the description of the SDU-IFPR research program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound which initially appeared online in Danish as Musikkens og Lydens Aestetik during the fall of 2006.)

The Aesthetics of Music and Sound - www.soundmusicresearch.org              

Cross-Disciplinary Interplay between the Humanities, Technology and Musical Practice