music, oppression and resistance conference booklet
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International Conference MUSIC, OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE 2-3 March 2012 Amsterdam, The Netherlands Bake Society for performing Arts Worldwide & KVNM. Introduction, program and abstractsTRANSCRIPT
International Conference
MUSIC, OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE
2-3 March 2012 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Address: University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16,
1012 CP Amsterdam
BAKE SOCIETY
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Contents Introduction to the Conference…………………………………………………………………….3
Programme…………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 Abstracts………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
ANDERTON, ABBY………………………………………………………………………………………7 BEJTULLAHU, ALMA……………………………………………………………………………………7 BELLE, JAN VAN…………………………………………………………………………………………8
BERG, FRANK VAN DEN…………………………………………………………………………….9 BRENNER, MIRIAM L………………………………………………………………………………..10
CHENG, CHENCHING……………………………………………………………………………….10 GRANT, MORAG J…………………………………………………………………………………….11 KOVACIC, MOJCA…………………………………………………………………………………….12
KUIPER, KLAUS………………………………………………………………………………………..13 LA ROSE, ANDREA…………………………………………………………………………………..13
NADRIGNY, PAULINE……………………………………………………………………………….14 NUXOLL, CORNELIA…………………………………………………………………………………15 PETERSEN, ULRIKE………………………………………………………………………………….15
STROUD, JOE…………………………………………………………………………………………..16 TOLTZ, JOSEPH……………………………………………………………………………………….17
WAIGHT, CAROLINE………………………………………………………………………………..18 WINDISCH, ANNA KATHARINA………………………………………………………………..18
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Introduction
Dear conference participants,
Welcome to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam, and to the conference Music, Oppression and Resistance! This meeting is jointly organized by Bake Society for
the Study of Performing Arts Worldwide and The Royal Society for Music History of the Netherlands. The total of abstracts submitted surpassed our wildest expectations, as did their high quality, so it was not easy for the programme
committee to make their selection. The result of their hard work is an international group of speakers and a highly diverse programme with special
emphasis on the themes of: (1) world war and music, (2) contemporary issues and (3) musical censorship.
In looking forward to what the conference brings, we expect to be able to acquire some inspiring insights into the following issues and questions involved in the
themes. Music in conflict and battle
Throughout history music has accompanied battle, be it for practical purposes or as a form of psychological warfare. In our times, too, when battles are fought
with high-tech equipment rather than swords or bare hands, music is still used to this end.
Music, oppression and resistance Leaders who want to control their subjects use music as a tool to alter the way
people act, think and function. How does music stimulate some thoughts and suppress others? But if music can be used to oppress, it can also function to set both mind and
body free. Music can be used to critique social structures and even society as a whole. How does music have the same ability bottom-up: to demonstrate
against those in charge and reclaim their power? The power of music
Music can be a medium to reach those inward places of the soul, where human motivation and inspiration originate. To control that source of power is equal to
holding a key to power. Is this what makes music such a sought-after “commodity”?
We hope this conference will bring you many fruitful and convivial moments of discussion and debate on these and related issues.
Karl Kügle, president of The Royal Society for Music History of the Netherlands
Adri Schreuder, president of Bake Society for the Study of Performing Arts Worldwide
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Programme
Friday 2 March 2012: morning session – World War and Music
09.30-10.00 Registration (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16)
10.00-10.15 Welcome and introduction 10.15-11.15 Presentations
Anna Katharina Windisch (University of Vienna)
“We'll Wallop the Kaiser” – Community Singing in American movie
theaters during the First World War
Abby Anderton (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
The cultural and social contexts of the Berlin Philharmonic in the early
postwar period
11.15-11.45 Coffee break
11.45-12.45 Presentations
Joseph Toltz (University of Western Sydney; Sydney Conservatorium of Music)
Vesele si zpívá častokrát: the function and place of everyday song in the
Terezín ghetto
Ulrike Petersen (University of California, Berkeley)
“An Acrobat in the Circus Dome” – Rudolf Weys’ 1944 edition of Lehár’s
operetta Der Rastelbinder
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.30 Musical workshop (optional) Registration for the workshop is via the online registration form for the
Conference.
Friday afternoon: two parallel sessions – Contemporary issues
Parallel session (1)
14.30-15.30 Presentations
Mojca Kovacic (Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts, Ljubljana)
Christianity as a threat to authority through the perspective of bells and
bell ringing
Alma Bejtullahu (Slovenia)
Music of Oppression, Revolt and Oblivion in Kosovo’s Conflict
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15.30-15.45 Coffee break
15.45-16.45 Presentations
Cornelia Nuxoll (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Underage Soldiers and the Role of Music in the Sierra Leone Civil War
Pauline Nadrigny (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
“Noise equals power”: 20th Century musical creation in the midst of
sound imperialism
Parallel session (2) 14.30-15.30 Presentations
ChenChing Cheng (University of Edinburgh)
The Voice of Lost Nostalgia or Imaginative Colonization? A Case Study of Taiwanese Singer Teresa Teng and Her Enka Performance
Caroline Waight (Cornell University) Irony, Power and Protest in Nina Hagen’s Du hast den Farbfilm
vergessen
15.30-15.45 Coffee break 15.45-16.45 Presentations
Andrea La Rose (Franconian International School, Erlangen)
From Protest to Dialogue, from Oppression to Inclusion (Frederic Rzewski)
Klaus Kuiper (University of Amsterdam) Music as Torture
Plenary
16.45-17.15 Discussion
17.30-18.15 Drinks and Music
18.45-... Dinner
Saturday 3 March 2012: morning session – Musical Censorship
09.00 - 09.30 Registration (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16)
09.30 - 09.35 Introduction
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09.35 - 10.20 Keynote speech
Morag J. Grant (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Towards a social musicology of war
10.20 - 11.20 Presentations
Jan van Belle (Netherlands)
Musical Censorship, War And Religion In Afghanistan
Miriam L. Brenner (Netherlands)
“Hammer, Sickle and Igil”: Evolution of Tuvan Music in the (post) Soviet
era
11.20 - 11.35 Coffee break
11.35 - 12.35 Presentations
Frank van den Berg (Netherlands)
Musical censorship policies in Portugal, Spain and Greece during the
dictatorships of Salazar, Franco and Metaxas
Joe Stroud (University of Edinburgh)
Mechanisms of Censorship Avoidance in the Extreme-Right Music Scene
12.25 - 13.00 Discussion
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Music Freedom Day at the Tropentheater Today, Saturday 3 March, the Tropentheater in Amsterdam is presenting a programme to
gain international attention for Music Freedom Day. This day there will be an
international focus on music censorship worldwide. In the afternoon from 14.00 hours
onwards there will be a discussion about the internet paradox of censorship in music, and
a performance by the Tibetan singer Namgyal Lhamo. The film Tibet in Song by Ngawang
Choephel will be shown in the evening, starting at 19:30 hours.
The theme of this Music Freedom Day is called "the internet paradox: music censorship
and distribution possibilities." Whereas Internet gives opportunities to musicians in exile
to distribute their music, on the other hand it is also a tool for censorship. Think of
iTunes that for example tells artists to change titles of their music. In the afternoon there
is a debate with the following speakers: Francisco van Jole (internet journalist), Mina
Saadadi (born in Iran and founder of ShahrzadNews.org, a news site about issues which
are ignored in Iran) and Frank Kouwenhoven (China expert). The Tibetan singer Namgyal
Lhamo, also called the Nightingale of Tibet, will give a performance.
This afternoon programme is free of charge, but reservation is required at (020) 500
5688.
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Abstracts
ANDERTON, ABBY
The cultural and social contexts of the Berlin Philharmonic in the early
postwar period
With the reintroduction of Entartete Musik (“Degenerate Musik”) by Mendelssohn
and Mahler, how was music re–politicized as the Philharmonic struggled to shed
its former associations with National Socialism? Additionally, how would the
American Military Government, responsible for overseeing cultural life in West
Berlin, manipulate the Philharmonic for its own postwar re–education plans?1
Between 1945 and 1949, the Philharmonic played within highly propagandized
settings: for Allied troops, under the baton of American officers, at private
parties of government officials, and for concerts with American musicians visiting
Berlin. The performative framework the Philharmonic occupied in the postwar
period was arguably as fraught with political subtext as during the Third Reich.
The Philharmonic resumed the role of framing the work of a Military Regime,
though this time in the form of the American Occupational Government rather
than the National Socialists.
As the largest and most prestigious cultural organization within the American
sector, the Philharmonic was under the jurisdiction of American cultural officers,
men specially selected by the Military Government to monitor postwar German
theater and music. Although cultural officers such as John Bitter and Frederick
Mellinger did manage to locate missing instruments and scores, coal, and
musicians for the ensemble, their efforts were tempered by certain abuses of
power that negated the peaceful goodwill American re-education efforts in
postwar Germany hoped to instill. Instead, the Philharmonic was literally
Widerstandlos (without resistance) against the plans of American authorities. If,
as the American Military Government believed, the Nazis had so successfully
mobilized German Kultur as a propaganda tool, then why couldn’t American
authorities do the same thing?
Abby Anderton is a Doctoral candidate in Historical Musicology at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her dissertation concerns the American Military Government
regulation of postwar classical music culture in West Berlin. She is currently performing
archival research in Berlin. She holds two BAs in Music and English from Bucknell
University in Lewisburg, PA.
BEJTULLAHU, ALMA
Music of Oppression, Revolt and Oblivion in Kosovo’s Conflict
This paper explores the question of how censorship can shape musical practice
as a relation of cause and consequence. This issue raises a sequence of
questions that are addressed in the paper. In which way does one musical
practice under certain circumstances become music of the oppressed? How does
1 “Application for Employment, John Bitter,” 25 June 1949, RG 260, Box 18, Records of the
Education and Cultural Relations Division, NARA II.
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a musical style or practice become censored by the oppressor and at the same
time admired by the oppressed? What is the turning point when a simple musical
practice outgrows artistic expression and becomes a cultural or political
statement? How does music of the oppressed become a part of the revolt,
resistance and eventually a companion in a violent engagement that will be
forgotten soon after it completes its purpose? The paper focuses on the example
of Albanian music from Kosovo during the political turmoil, demonstrating how
censored music of the student protestors transformed into music of soldiers that
called to action amidst the Kosovo war.
Alma Bejtullahu graduated in Musicology from the University of Ljubljana, and is now
completing her PhD studies in Slovenia. She researches popular and traditional music in
Kosovo and Slovenia, including music of Kosovo Albanians in the context of political
movements for independence. Her scholarly work also includes issues such as female
musicians and gender issues in traditional and popular music of Kosovo.
BELLE, JAN VAN
Musical Censorship, War And Religion In Afghanistan
In this paper a report will be given of three periods of censorship of music in
Afghanistan.
From 1978-1992, the communist government of Nur Ahmad Taraki controlled
music through the Ministry of Information and Culture. Music and musicians were
used (often through force) as means of propaganda, and musicians had to make
tours abroad to other communist countries.
The proclamation of the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1992 and the
Rabbani/Hekmatyar (1992-1996) leaders was the beginning of a return of more
orthodox religious forces; music was still permitted in a confined, private
context, although considered to be against public morals. There was practically
no music on radio and tv, but music on audio cassettes was still available In
Northern Afghanistan under the rule of the Uzbek warlord Dostum, music could
still be played in public places.
The ban on music culminated during the reign of the fundamentalist Islamic
militia known as Taliban (1996-2001) in the strict interpretation of Islamic law,
which led to a total prohibition of music, destruction of all sound recording media
and musical instruments by the all-present Office for the Propagation of Virtue
and the Prevention of Vice. Musicians were beaten, builders of musical
instruments had to look for another job and Radio Kabul, the center for the
diffusion of Afghan music was closed. The only music permitted was recitation
(chants) of Quranic texts and songs of praise of Taliban principles and of the
Taliban brothers who died on the battlefield.
Historically, Quranic recitation and the call to prayer are a form of religious
expression of Islam and it would be considered a blasphemy to call it music. This
indicates that in the Islamic world the term “music” is used in a more limited
sense than in the Western world. Music has been permitted as far as it didn’t
separate the listener from religion and God, an attitude which varied from total
prohibition (music arousing the lower passions) to a more permissive state of
mind, especially concerning wedding music and other family celebrations.
The consequences of these three periods of censorship left deep wounds in
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Afghan musical life, which even today are still apparent, in Afghanistan and
outside the country, because most of the professional musicians went into exile
for their survival, losing contact with their natural environment and their public.
Although little attention was given to the desperate position of Afghan music
during this period in the international media, music has proven to be an integral
part of life in Afghanistan. After the Taliban period and in spite of the poverty of
the people, due to the continuing of the civil war, musical life in Afghanistan is
in a process of recovery and creating a new élan.
Jan van Belle obtained his MA in Musicology from the University of Utrecht in 1989 and
earlier graduated in clarinet, saxophone and bass clarinet from Arnhem conservatoire,
followed up by teaching music and performing. From 1987 to 2001 he made many
research and recording trips to places including Morocco, Bulgaria, Tunesia, Tajik
Badakhshan, Afghan Badakhshan, Northern China and Northern Afghanistan.
BERG, FRANK VAN DEN
Musical censorship policies in Portugal, Spain and Greece during the
dictatorships of Salazar, Franco and Metaxas
The motives why dictators choose to bother artists are normally predictable. The
artists do not share the values that the dictator imposes on his people, or even
attack these values. In reactionary dictatorships, nationalism, national religion
and family hierarchy are normally important pillars of order. These shared values
do not imply that all reactionary or fascist dictators rule their country equally,
given that every ruler inherits another cultural and political legacy. In this paper,
I will compare the censorships of Portuguese fado under the rule of António de
Oliveira Salazar, Spanish copla under Francisco Franco and Greek ρεμπέτικο, or
rebetiko, under Ioannis Metaxas, keeping in mind the pre-histories of these
music genres in the 19th and the early 20th century. All of these genres are urban
popular musics: fado was linked to Lisbon and Coimbra, copla to several
Andalucian towns, and rebetiko to Athens, Piraeus and Thessaloniki. I think it is
crucial to do research on the construction of the concepts in order to know what
fado, copla and rebetiko meant in the era that the dictators took over the rule of
their nations. For all of them, this period was the 1930s decade: Salazar took
power over his nation in 1933, Metaxas in 1936, and Franco gained gradually
more power in Spain during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. The
genres I will treat have very different prehistories. However, at the end of the
19th century cultural influence from Paris, which Walter Benjamin has declared
the capital of the 19th century for its leading role in the way to “modern culture”,
can be perceived in Portuguese, Spanish and Greek urban environments. The
modern culture implies a shift from a traditional, familiar, small-scale society to
an individualistic, image-directed culture. The distribution of this culture brought
so-called revue theatres in Spain and café-chantants in Greece, where the
morals were loose, and where musicians and dancers were sometimes naked or
even could be prostitutes. [Start of Introduction to MA thesis]
Frank van de Berg presents aspects of his final paper MA in Musicology at the University
of Amsterdam. The full title of his thesis is: “Analyzing the cultural clashes between
fascism and modernity in histories of Portuguese, Spanish and Greek urban popular
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music genres during the rules of Salazar (1933-1970), Franco (1936-1975) and Metaxas
(1936-1941).”
BRENNER, MIRIAM L.
“Hammer, Sickle and Igil”: Evolution of Tuvan Music in the (post) Soviet era
The soundscape of the nomadic Urianghai or Tuvan people is firmly rooted in
animistic and shamanistic beliefs. Their khöömei overtone singing is mentioned
in records dating from the time of Genghis Khan. Throughout history these music
traditions have been influenced by those in power. Hammer, Sickle and Igil
focuses on the colonization of Tanna Tuva and the USSR in the twentieth
century.
The applied socialist ideology, followed by the communist dogma deemed local
music traditions an obstacle in the process of uniting the inhabitants of the new
Soviet Union. To this end the very foundations of Siberian life were violently
removed: shamanism was forbidden, its practitioners persecuted, nomads were
forced into sedentarization.
Music was regulated from the heart of Moscow to the outskirts of the steppe
through a “culture and music mandate”. A homogenous “ethnic” musical soup
ensued once musicians were expected to obtain a western music education,
diatonic scales were introduced and orchestras and ballet troupes were formed.
Tuvan music styles and genres faced near extinction because of the harsh
enforcement of the mandate.
Moreover the Russians knew that music was the perfect medium to disseminate
ideology. To distribute a political agenda, doctrine was incorporated in traditional
poems and lyrics of the large and diverse Soviet-ethnic population, transforming
them into (socialist/communist) revolutionary songs. In this paper I examine the evolutionary path of music from Sayan Altai region
throughout the 20th into the 21st century: from free and independent – to regulated and controlled musicianship – and back. It provides insight into the flexible abilities of music enabling it to survive and flourish. The khöömei
technique and the horse-head fiddle igil not only represent the close relationship to their Siberian natural surroundings, they also form a symbol of continued
existence and resilience – a musical legacy.
Miriam L. Brenner graduated as MA in musicology, majoring in world music, at the
University of Amsterdam in 2008. Her master thesis “Hammer, Sickle and Igil” discusses
Central Asian music, while focusing on the Tuvan ensemble Huun-Huur-Tu. She works for
international music festival Music Meeting in Nijmegen and music venue RASA in Utrecht,
and is an active board member of the Bake Society for Performing Arts Worldwide.
CHENG, CHENCHING
The Voice of Lost Nostalgia or Imaginative Colonization? A Case Study of
Taiwanese Singer Teresa Teng and Her Enka Performance
Teresa Teng (1964-1995) is considered to be one of the most influential singers
in Asia during the Cold War Period. Though Taiwanese, her popularity
transcended national barriers from her right-wing totalitarian country Taiwan to
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Communist China as well as Japan, a former colonial power. During the early
1980s Teresa Teng rose up to be the most popular Enka singer of her time in
Japan, even though Enka Music was a post-war Japanese genre of sentimental
ballads drawing their ideological elements from Modern Stylistic Nationalism.
However, in Taiwan and China her popularity was based on a completely
different marketing image: for the former that of a pop idol promoting national
interests by boosting the morale of the army and being using as a right wing
ideology propaganda tool to project their nostalgia of mainland China, while for
the latter an idealistic imagination of a democratic utopia.
The pulse of an era can be felt by focusing on its Popular Music. Through Teresa
Teng’s popularity, audiences in Japan were able to identify in her voice a sense
of lost nostalgia towards their former colony, as well as an imaginative
reconstruction of China’s occupation during the Second World War. Even today
an ideological essence is suggested in all countries of the region when songs of
that time frame are reproduced. The main focus of this paper is to present how
the social context and cultural policy under the control of communist China, as
well as the political ideology contest between red China and Taiwan, worked
hand in hand for designing Teng as a product of misrepresented nostalgia in
Japan. Her story is a prime example for investigating such complexes during
Asia’s Cold War. Such historical backgrounds – not restricted to music alone, but
extended through specific social contexts – can provide a new perspective to
established beliefs about the battle and power of the music.
ChenChing Cheng left a career in Economic Journalism to pursue a PhD in Film Studies at
Peking University and is now on his second PhD in Musicology at the University of
Edinburgh. He is researching music in Cold War Asia focused in China, Taiwan, Hong-
Kong and Japan, and has undertaken fieldwork on audience memories of Teresa Teng's
ability to overcome cultural and ideological barriers during this period.
GRANT, MORAG J. (Keynote Speaker)
Towards a social musicology of war
Despite a growing number of ethnomusicological studies, and extensive work on
music in the context of selected twentieth-century wars, the study of music in
conflict situations remains in its early stages. In particular, relatively little
research has been done on the earlier history of the topic, even in such vital
areas as military music. Theoretical approaches to the topic are also lacking.
How, though, to theorise the role of music and musicality in war? This
contribution offers a possible framework for such a theory from the perspective
of social musicology. I will suggest that in order to understand the roles played
by music in war, we must first recognise that the uses, contexts and effects of
music in conflict situations and in war are as ancient, widespread, varied and
frequent as in any other area of human social life. This reiterates the need for
more intensive investigation and comparison of concrete examples from different
cultural and historical contexts. As a way in to addressing this topic, the main
part of the presentation will focus on a typology and "topology" of music and
musical practice at the most critical juncture of conflict – the resort to acts of
violence, differentiating between three distinct but overlapping geographical and
temporal spaces, namely:
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1. music at the moment of violence
2. music in preparation of violence
3. music in the reporting of violence
Each of these spaces will be briefly explored with reference to concrete examples
taken largely from my own ongoing research, with a focus on older historical
examples. These include the role of music in military flogging ceremonies in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the role of song in establishing
historical narratives on war and just causes, with particular but not exclusive
reference to Scottish song from the eighteenth century onwards.
Morag J. Grant is junior professor of social musicology at the Georg-August-Universität
Göttingen and leader of the research group "Music, Conflict and the State", which was set
up on her initiative in 2008. Her research focuses are the theory and aesthetics of new
and experimental music; the role of song and singing in human social life; music in
Scotland; and music, conflict and human rights.
The research group “Music, Conflict and the State” promotes and conducts research into
the role of music in promoting, facilitating and perpetuating violent responses to conflicts
between social groups and communities. A key aim is to extend the knowledge base for
work on music and conflict, including by integrating case studies from earlier centuries.
Recently, the group also began developing a project on the history, spread and impact of
the use of music in connection with torture.
KOVACIC, MOJCA
Christianity as a threat to authority through the perspective of bells and bell ringing
With their size, volume and spiritual symbolism, bells are one of the important means of political control, or rebellion against church authority. In the course of
European history they often served the needs of political will. Withdrawal of the bells during wars or prohibition of bell ringing curtailed the population not only
materially but also (or above all) spiritually. To control the bells meant to control the symbolic order, rhythm, and loyalties of the people (Corbain 1998). Bells and specially their sound were never solely the property of the church, but the whole
community, so their withdrawal or prohibition of bell ringing often triggered collective resistance. Conversely, today’s isolated cases of rebellion against the
church bell ringing could also be understood as criticism of the church authorities. In the paper, I will present historical facts of the withdrawal of bells and
prohibitions of bell ringing in Slovenia. I will focus on people’s narratives about the consequences of such repression, highlight a period of the communist regime
and its impact on bell ringing and bell chiming tradition in Slovenia and discuss the causes of present-day forms of resistance against the bell ringing. Mojca Kovacic is a PhD assistant researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology of the
Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts. Her research
interest includes folk instrumental music, gender and music, music and cultural policy.
Her doctoral thesis (2009) involved ethnomusicological aspects of bell chiming as a
special feature of Slovene culture.
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KUIPER, KLAUS
Music as Torture
Music has been used as an instrument of torture on many occasions. A recent
and well-known example is the use of hard-rock music (e.g. AC-DC) to terrorize prisoners and deprive them of sleep, in Guantanamo Bay (but not only hard-
rock, as I will illustrate). In wartime situations, sound and music – or perhaps I should say: the sound of music – has been played extremely loudly from airplanes and sound systems on
the ground, to terrorize people belonging to the adversarial party, be they civilian or military.
This kind of practice isn't new: an early example is the use of bagpipes and drums on the battlefield of course, and recently an interesting and curious use of music came to light: playing classical music in public spaces, to chase away
loitering youngsters. Government funded scientific research, particularly in 3rd Reich Germany and
contemporary UK – and slightly later up to now, even more thoroughly in the US – has been done into “no-touch torture”, in which music and sound play (!) a major part (cf. Cusick 2006).
In my lecture I will not differentiate between sound and music, since the boundary between them is a floating (if not fleeting) phenomenon, in this
respect. I will provide examples, and taking into account the views of Attali (1985),
Appadurai (1996), Cusick (2006) and Goodman (2010) among others, I will look into the societal implications of this approach to music, and the problematic of “self” and “other” inherent in these practices; the alienation and mental
breakdown of a subject exposed to “no-touch torture” might just as easily be effected by the very music this subject loves, just by the way the object of love
is inflicted on the subject as a tool of torture. Klaus Kuiper is a composer and a performer on keys, strings and percussion, including
gamelan. His work ranges from electronic music to “world” music practices, from
meticulously notated scores to free improvisation. He is an active board member of the
Bake Society for Performing Arts Worldwide, and studied musicology at the University of
Amsterdam.
LA ROSE, ANDREA
From Protest to Dialogue, from Oppression to Inclusion
Frederic Rzewski’s oeuvre builds bridges between classical, jazz, and folk musics,
between composed and improvised music making, between the composer and
the performer, and between the personal and the political. His treatment of the
classic protest song “Which Side Are You On?” in North American Ballads
demonstrates succinctly how through-composed and improvised music can
combine to make bold, substantial connections between a myriad of ideologies.
Discussions of the role of politics in Frederic Rzewski’s music generally stop at
surface elements: the title of the work, the use of a particular song, and guesses
as to what left-leaning audience the piece is directed at. Similarly, discussion of
the role of improvisation in Rzewski’s work begins and ends simply at the
mention of its existence. Using transcription and analysis of improvisations from
recordings of “Which Side Are You On?” from North American Ballads combined
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with ideas about modeling from Christian Asplund, musicking from Christopher
Small, and Rzewski’s own writings about music, this paper examines how the
political manifests at every level of the music, enabling listeners and performers
to experience a socio-political situation beyond mere sloganeering, and the
essential role improvisation plays in creating that experience.
Andrea La Rose’s pride and joy has been her work as a flutist/composer/board member
with the punk-classical antagonists Anti-Social Music. Since August 2009, she has been
an instrumental performance specialist at the Franconian International School in
Erlangen, Germany. She recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in
Composition at The City University of New York with her research on Rzewski.
NADRIGNY, PAULINE
“Noise equals power”: 20th Century musical creation in the midst of
sound imperialism
Rather than exploring the alternatives “warring power of music/musical
resistance to violence”, this paper focuses on the reaction and response of
certain contemporary musical movements to the violence of sound in our
urbanised societies. Some actually experience this violence as a genuine “sound
imperialism”: “When sound power is sufficient to create a large acoustic profile,
we may speak of it as imperialistic”, writes R. Murray Schafer in The
Soundscape, insisting on the political stake of this domination through sound.
Faced with this power, the reactions and responses of artists is multiple: while
Schafer and his school suggest fighting against the sound imperialism of our
urban environment through reharmonisation and the creation of a sound
ecology, other musicians, such as John Cage, choose to open themselves to the
flood of sonorities and suggest an attentive and open act of listening, while
others, in a noise music approach, decide to re-appropriate this violence to
better contest it.
If the techniques of recording, broadcasting and dissemination of sound, and
more broadly the industrialisation and urbanisation of our lifestyles have fulfilled
the saying of “noise equals power” (R.M. Schafer), we could wonder what
attitude contemporary music can have, faced with this power of sound: a frontal
confrontation, a taming, or an opening of oneself to listen to it, to subvert it?
From the noise music project of futurists to the irenecist silence of Cage, we shall
study these various responses, their artistic and political stakes and lean on the
study of musical works and performances as well as the texts left by the
participants in contemporary music who studied this problematic.
Indicative list of composers and theoretical works: Henry David Thoreau,
Walden, “Sounds”; Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises; Franceso Balilla Pratella;
John Cage, Silence; Robert Murray Schafer, The Soundsape, Our sonic
environment or the tuning of the world; Franciso Lopez; Einstürzende
Neubauten.
Pauline Nadrigny is a doctoral candidate and junior lecturer at Université Paris 1
Panthéon-Sorbonne, and works in the research lab of Contemporary Philosophy (Center
for Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art). Her research focuses on contemporary music, and
electroacoustics more specifically, approached through the study of composers'
theoretical works. Pauline Nadrigny is a musician and regularly gives concerts.
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NUXOLL, CORNELIA
Underage Soldiers and the Role of Music in the Sierra Leone Civil War
The civil war, which raged in Sierra Leone throughout the 1990s, is particularly
infamous for the many atrocities committed towards civilians and the high
numbers of underage soldiers that were forcefully, coercively or voluntarily
recruited for active combat by all warring factions.
The insurgence of the paramilitary Revolutionary United Front (RUF) is
sometimes considered a senseless and apolitical upheaval merely driven by
greed for diamonds; others argue that it is a result of bad governance and
economic failure, which neatly corresponded with the frustrations of a whole
generation of youth facing poor livelihood prospects.
A conducted field research among the former RUF rebels explored the relevance
and impact of music in their lives as soldiers during the Sierra Leonean civil war.
The musical pieces and genres that were meaningful to combatants during
wartime ranged from internationally popular music to local and other African
artists to songs composed within the RUF fighting factions.
Whereas own compositions of soldier songs mainly functioned as morale
boosters, training or praise songs, most notably reggae music proved to be the
most influential source of inspiration for the fighters, bearing the aesthetic of
resistance. Its revolutionary content and protest character served as a means to
create affirmations of the self and the Other in generating a sense of belonging
while at the same time outlining a concept of the enemy. Some examples show
how specific songs were adapted to accompany and amplify actual events during
the war.
The case study discusses to what extent combatants select, relate to or
misinterpret specific songs and lyrics, for example as a source of motivation or
as a way of claiming authority in order to shape and confirm their own reality
and legitimize their actions during the war.
Cornelia Nuxoll is a member of the research group “Music, Conflict and the State” at the
University of Göttingen/Germany. She studied Social Anthropology and Religious Studies
in Marburg, London and Berlin with special focus on ethnomusicology in sub-Saharan
Africa. Within the framework of her PhD thesis, she did fieldwork on the role and impact
of music among juvenile RUF combatants involved in the Sierra Leonean civil war.
PETERSEN, ULRIKE
“An Acrobat in the Circus Dome” – Rudolf Weys’ 1944 edition of Lehár’s
operetta Der Rastelbinder
Operetta’s potential as National Socialist entertainment was noted by Reichspropaganda-Minister Goebbels early on. However, the art form was predominantly Jewish: as a party-internal report from 1934 states, “the purely
Aryan works could not have exceeded 10%.” In order to replenish the Reich’s Aryan repertory, Goebbels founded the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen
(Government panel for the arrangement of music), an institution which has been
mentioned mostly for its “Aryanizations” of classical works including Handel’s
oratorios and Mozart’s Da Ponte operas. However, at least half of its
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commissions were for operettas – revised editions and new works. This paper will provide insights into the Reichsstelle’s dealings with operetta by examining Viennese cabarettist Rudolf Weys’ unfinished 1944 edition of Lehár’s Der Rastelbinder (1902). This work had been Lehár’s biggest success in Vienna;
however, Nazi German performances were impossible because the central
character was an itinerant Jewish peddler. To “rescue” such a propitious work by Hitler’s favorite composer promised both a new standard work for the Third
Reich repertory and an economic success for theaters. Unlike the operetta under consideration, the editor in charge of its “Aryanization” was not an obvious choice – Weys was a staunch pro‐ Austrian social democrat
with a Jewish wife. For him, this official “Reichsauftrag” proved a powerful tool
to dodge many of the Third Reich’s bullets as work of this sort increasingly
turned into an alibi. Weys’s case shows that musical theater could be a lifeline
for authors under the Nazi regime: operetta’s lack of political explicitness
became a welcome feature for nonconformist artists who could not afford to
attract attention or to leave the Reich. Moreover, the Rastelbinder case provides
an opportunity to trace the gradual collapse of the National Socialist system as
those officials who had once promoted operetta became too busy with pressing
war matters to stay in control of cultural affairs.
Ulrike Petersen is a PhD candidate in Music History at the University of California,
Berkeley. Originally from Hamburg (Germany), Ulrike completed a BA in Music (2005)
and an MPhil. in Musicology (2006) at Girton College, Cambridge (UK). She is currently
working on a dissertation that explores aspects of operetta’s political, social, and cultural impact in Vienna during each era of twentieth‐ century Austrian history.
STROUD, JOE
Mechanisms of Censorship Avoidance in the Extreme-Right Music Scene
Discussions of censorship often focus on the right to expression, and whether it
is ever permissible to act against this right. The prototypical liberal position
argues that such censorship is damaging to both society and the individual. This
paper, however, considers the legislation which is designed to establish a
boundary between freedom of expression and hate crime, and the impact this
has on bands associated with the extreme-right music scene. This scene, which
in the mid-1990s was cited as a multi-million dollar industry, has altered
drastically since then, in both style and significance.
This paper focuses on three European nations – Germany, Great Britain and
Sweden – which have particularly significant extreme-right music scenes, and
different legislative approaches to dealing with it. The scene in the United States,
which is protected by freedom of speech legislation, effectively acts as a
benchmark against which developments in other countries can be assessed.
A number of tactics have been used to avoid censorship. In Sweden, printed
lyrics on album sleeves have substituted innocuous words for offending ones in
the songs themselves. Another approach is simply to disregard the relevant
laws; this is most obvious in Germany, where musicians have been imprisoned
for their work, but is also evident in Britain and Sweden where police raids have
targeted music producers and distributors. Countries with less stringent laws can
help to avoid censorship; for instance, German-language websites are hosted in
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Canada, while Polish confederates have manufactured music for export to
Germany.
This paper concludes by considering whether the shift away from confrontational
lyrical themes and musical genres that has been seen over the past decade is
simply another mechanism for avoiding censorship, or whether it is tied to a
broader “softening” of rhetoric in the extreme right in general, related to the
“modernisation” of extreme-right political parties.
Joe Stroud is a second year doctoral candidate in the Music department at the University
of Edinburgh. His research considers the role of music in the extreme-right movement. It
assesses historical developments and contemporary manifestations, focusing particularly
on the use of music in constructing notions of identity. His earlier Master’s research
analysed the output of the British National Party’s record label.
TOLTZ, JOSEPH
Vesele si zpívá častokrát2: the function and place of everyday song in the
Terezín ghetto
Very little evidence suggests any interest in the vast array of cultural activities
generated within the walls of the Terezín ghetto (1941-1945) until the early
1970s, when Joža Karas, a violinist living in the United States, rediscovered
compositions filed away in the Prague Jewish Museum. Following his discoveries
and consequent years of research and lobbying, a body of literature has been
generated on this unique program of cultural life. Because of their potential use
in various propaganda contexts (visits by the International Committee of the Red
Cross and the filming of a “documentary” on the “Jewish settlement”), cultural
activities in Terezín have occupied an ambivalent place in Holocaust readings,
somewhere between the redemptive discourse of spiritual resistance, or fending
off accusations of (unconscious) complicity in the Nazi project of deception, as a
paving stone on the road to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Karas’ book3 on cultural life in Terezín continues to be the primary source in
English regarding life in the ghetto, yet it was by no means comprehensive,
focusing on formalized music activities over the everyday experiences of the vast
majority of ghetto dwellers, most of whom did not experience music at an elite
level. In particular, the place of the modernist-inspired compositions written and
performed in the ghetto reached only a tiny minority, yet they still occupy the
main focus of music in Terezín.
This paper will present contrafactum songs, excerpts from cabaret, children’s
songs and forgotten works from the memories of living Terezín survivors who
settled in Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States. This
private repertoire of music, reflecting a range of experiences, falls under the
rubric of musical testimony: a distinct form of the testimonial enterprise whereby
survivors transcend unnecessary modes of categorization and release the
experience of music back to a fundamental place as an act of human
commentary.
2 (Translation: and often sings merrily) 3 Karas, Joža. Music in Terezín 1941-1945. 1st ed. New York: Beaufort Books, 1985. (2nd edition
published posthumously, Hillsdale, 2008)
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Joseph Toltz completed his doctoral dissertation, “Hidden Testimony: musical experience
and memory in Jewish Holocaust survivors” at the University of Sydney. Joseph is a
professional singer and continues to perform in Sydney’s only professional choral
ensemble, Cantillation. Currently he lectures and tutors at the University of Western
Sydney and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.
WAIGHT, CAROLINE
Irony, Power and Protest in Nina Hagen’s Du hast den Farbfilm
vergessen
The German singer Nina Hagen is famous and infamous for her uncompromising
music and provocative, politically-conscious lyrics. After coming of age in the GDR, she defected in 1976 and released her first album two years later; although she did not produce an album in East Germany, she did release several highly
successful singles with the rock band Automobil. My paper focuses on their first single, the tuneful, effervescent Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (“You forgot the
colour film”), an ironic tale of forgetful tourists. Using Linda Hutcheon’s theorisation of the complex, ever-shifting dynamic between irony and power, I read two very different performances of Farbfilm – the original release from 1974
and a live 2005 rendition on Die DDR Show – through two inversely related contexts: the East German totalitarian state and the ambiguous world of post-
Reunification Ostalgie.
In teasing out Farbfilm’s ironies, I identify the ways in which the song satirises
the GDR’s attempts to build a sense of national identity through the promotion of
domestic tourism, consumption, and technological and industrial progress.
However, I also explore the contingency of irony as protest in the oppressive
political environment of East Germany: despite its subversive intent, the song
was co-opted as an advertisement for VEB ORWO, a company that produced
colour film, flattening its central metaphor into surface meaning. As both an
engagement with and object of material culture, Farbfilm is therefore an unstable
signifier: it is at once subversive and commodified, knowing and banal. In the
twenty-first century version this dynamic is played out yet again, but now with a
different valence: while in its original form the song betrayed the fragile balances
of power inherent in protest, its afterlife reveals the ways in which the GDR
constructed by the West as both an idealised site of resistance and a repository
of kitsch.
Caroline Waight is a PhD candidate in Musicology at Cornell University. She took a
Master’s in Historical Musicology at the University of Oxford and obtained her BA (Music
Tripos) from the University of Cambridge. Research presented in 2011 includes aspects
of guilt and glory in Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and the topic Busoni
writes Bach: machines, mysticism and the music of the future.
WINDISCH, ANNA KATHARINA
“We'll Wallop the Kaiser” – Community Singing in American movie
theaters during the First World War
With the war entry of the United States in April 1917, the American populations'
vigilance towards certain foreign cultural influences was heightened on every
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level. This led to strong recommendations and prohibitions on what or what not
to play as musical accompaniment for silent pictures. The political developments
resulted in an abundance of especially composed songs of a patriotic nature,
which would then be produced as song slides and projected in movie theaters
between the film presentations. The topics of the songs range from “We'll Wallop
the Kaiser” to elaborate Animated song sheet productions of “The Star-Spangled
Banner” to promote the sale of liberty bonds among the public. The practice of
singing along to song slides was famously exercised by Illustrated song
performances, and formed a vital part of the exhibition program of movie
theaters during the years of the Nickelodeon boom in the 1910s.
During the First World War, the Illustrated song was also affected by the
changing political environment and utilized as a tool for propaganda. The practice
morphed into a specific social experience which I refer to as Community Singing,
displaying an emphasis on patriotism to unite the public against the shared
enemy and provide ideological support to the American troops in the battle
zones.
The audience would be encouraged to sing along and according to contemporary
accounts of the trade press, this was met with great enthusiasm. Well-known
public figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Enrico Caruso and others supported these
campaigns by testimony and by putting on benefit performances. In my article I
explore the implications of music as propaganda, embedding the sociological
function of the music in the historical and political context.
Anna Katharina Windisch, a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of Vienna, is
studying early cinema and silent film accompaniment. Her dissertation will be a
comparative study of the soundscape of Austrian and American silent cinema. Since
September 2011 she has held a Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Wirth Institute for
Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
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