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August 2008 Research Seminar Series
Monday 18 th August 1 pm
W6A Room 607
From pop to high art: George Russell and the status of composer in jazz music. Pierre-Emmanuel Seguin
In correspondence with the journal The Black Perspective in Music, the composer George Russell said of his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, that “in fact, the purpose of the study is to close the cultural and intellectual gap between so called Jazz and European Music.” George Russell published the first edition of his Concept in 1953, in which he proposes a re-organization of Western musical vocabulary based on the Lydian scale, rather than the Ionian scale, which serves as the basis of our tonal system. Throughout his career he has imposed himself as a composer in a musical genre defined by the practice of improvisation. As the first music theorist from jazz, he was also one of the first to rely on compositional commissions thus perfectly encompassing jazz music from popular through to high art.
This paper addresses the status of the composer in jazz, to investigate the apparent dichotomy of popular and high art, through the example of George Russell.
Pierre-Emmanuel Sequin is a doctorial research student in the DCMS
All welcome
Inquiries
Dr Adrian McNeil
X 8861
July 2008
David Myton of MQTV speaks with Mark Evans about his book Open Up The Doors: Music in the Modern Church.
Hear the podcast of at http://www.mqtv.mq.edu.au/PagePodcastArchive.php and scroll down to Rocking The Churches.
April 2008 News
v8n4 January 2008 "Perfect Beat" journal has just been released.
Contents
What's Going On?
Perceptions of popular music lobbyists in Australia
Martin Cloonan
Beyond the Sakura Waltz
Reflections on the encounter between German and Japanese jazz, 1962-1985
Andrew W. Hurley
Transcience and Durability
Music indursty initiatives, Shima Uta and the maintenance of Amaniculture
Philip Hayward and Sueo Kuwahara
The Mastering Process and the Systems Model of Creativity
Philp McIntrye and Bryan Paton
March 2008 News
DCMS is pleased to announce a new performance based course in improvisation in music beginning in early 2009. The course is open to the widest possible understanding of improvisation and draws upon music cultures at home and around the world. So if you are a guitar player wanting to improve your solos, a kit drummer wanting to work on your groove, a Turkish saz player wanting to augment your maqam practice, a sitar player wanting to develop your rhythmic or melodic skills, a jazz player wanting to work on a systematic approach to improvisation, a Cuban percussionist, an Oud player, a Flamenco guitarist, a Jazz saxophonist, a Celtic fiddler, or a music teacher wanting to develop improvisatory practices for the class room, then this is the course is for you! This cutting edge course is offered concurrently as a Masters in Contemporary Improvisation (8 units), Graduate Diploma in Improvisation (6 units) or a Graduate Certificate in Improvisation (4 units). This means you can tailor the course exactly to your needs. You can learn advanced rhythmic skills, improvisation in harmonic and modal settings, diverse ways of thinking about music based on the performance practice of many cultures, how to put this knowledge together in ensemble practice and much much more.
The course will be taught by musicians all with significant international performance experience and reputations.
If you are as excited by this course as we are, then please contact Dr. Adrian McNeil for more details.
Tel: + 61 2 9850 8861
or adrian.mcneil@mq.edu.au
DCMS 2008 Student Compilation CD.
Submissions are now open for the DCMS 2008 Student Compilation CD. If you are a Macquarie student and you (and/or your band) have a recording that you would like the students enrolled in MUS209 - Music Business to consider for the compilation and mini-festival event, please burn it to CD and put it under the door to the office W6A 618. Please ensure that you include your contact details on the actual CD.
January 2008 News
Dance Is Now At Macquarie University
Movement and music meet in a new dance program at Macquarie University, in the Department of Contemporary Music, starting in 2008. This new Dance Studies program embraces the practical and the conceptual in an integrated study of contemporary movement and theatrical forms.
Uniquely, it is a course decidedly based in Australian practices, looking to the current landscape and the traditions of the twentieth century as they appeared in this country. At its heart is a validation of the work of Australian dancers.
This course welcomes the novice. Unlike many academic dance programs, there is no audition process, based in assumed knowledge. Students from all faculties are encouraged to engage with a practice that is at once rigorous and fun. Flexible enrolment protocols allow students to select the depth of their engagement. Individual subjects can be selected to function as a truly alternative mode of study. This is on-your-feet academia.
I am Dr. Pauline Manley and I am the lecturer for this exciting new venture. I want to engage students with the eclectic nature of the dance world whilst creating viable and grounded connections to the dance community of Sydney. We will study areas as diverse as music theatre, twentieth century aesthetics, dance and film, choreographic skills and a two-tier technical component that teaches contemporary dance as a series of movement principles, not a generic vocabulary. Even theoretical studies will be based in embodied knowledge.
My dancing history is one that has always sought new ground, so my techniques are based in formal eclecticism and range from yoga to swing to improvisation. My doctoral thesis sought to investigate the nature of the dancing consciousness, welding dance practice and phenomenology. I love to teach dance and I truly believe that the essence of academic dance lies in it’s fundamental admixture of frivolity and fascination.
I encourage people to direct enquiries to me: pauline.manley@humn.mq.edu.au or 02 9850 9932, for I do love to talk about this new movement program.
A launch will be held in March, in the beautiful Macquarie art gallery with performances emerging from the Sydney horizon, including the fabulous Ms Kay Armstrong.
I applaud the Department of Contemporary Music for their audacious and progressive thinking in marrying the made-for-each other practices of music and dance. I believe this course alters the academic dance landscape by promoting inclusion and Australian-ness. In recent years there has been a constriction in the academic dance field, which makes this expansive venture all the more exciting.
Dr. Pauline Manley.
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