Bridges to America III

Thursday 04 April 2013 - 00:00 to Friday 05 April 2013 - 00:00
Des ponts vers l'Amérique III

Cdmc
Coordination Max Noubel

The interaction between art music and popular music in the USA in the 20th and 21st centuries

The aim of this international seminar is to investigate the fluctuating borders between American popular music and art music in the 20th and 21st centuries: to give as broad an account as possible of the great musical variety of a country in perpetual cultural mutation by re-examining its history and by observing its present.
In the course of the last century classical American music incorporated elements of language, genre and aesthetics from all kinds of popular music.
Conversely, composers of so-called popular music crossed the Rubicon to explore the ‘sacred’ territories of Great Music.
And yet, on both sides, these practices nurtured lively polemics between supporters of music produced well away from any form of external ‘contamination’ and the partisans of open creativity, who drew energy and renewal from musical practices and genres closer to ordinary people. Today, though they tend to become less marked, the differences between popular and art music have far from disappeared. What will things be like in the future?

Partnership Cdmc – Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage (EHESS-CNRS) – RASM
/// Admission free, reservation 01 47 15 49 86 or cdmc@cdmc.asso.fr 

Bridges to America III - 1st day

Thursday 04 April 2013 - 09:30

9h30 Welcome for participants

10h Opening of the seminar
Laure Marcel Berlioz, director of the Cdmc and Max Noubel, University of Bourgogne, CRAL (Music team)

Jazz I
Moderator: Grégoire Tosser, University of Évry Val d’Essonne

10h15 America and jazz in the 1920s: Art or entertainment?
Philippe Gumplowicz, University of Évry-Val d’Essonne, RASM

11h Revisionist Challenges in Writing the Biography of Ella Fitzgerald
Judith Tick, Northeastern University, USA

11h45 “They took jazz seriously”: Paul Whiteman and symphonic jazz at the Aeolian Hall (12 February 1924)
Martin Guerpin, University Paris-Sorbonne / Montreal University

Jazz II, the musical
Moderator: Philippe Gumplowicz

14h A Reconsideration of André Hodeir's Essay on Ellington's Concerto for Cootie
David Schiff, Reed College, Portland, USA

14h45 ‘Popular’ and ‘cultivated’ at the crossroads: ‘committed’ musicals and ‘Broadway Opera’
Gianfranco Vinay, University of Paris VIII

15h45 A Tale of Two Concerti : Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto (1948) and Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet, Harp, and Strings (1948) and the Politics of Jazz Before the Cold War
Gayle Murchison, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

16h30 Some thoughts on art music and popular music
Esteban Buch, EHESS, CRAL, Paris

17h15 Discussion among participants

Bridges to America III - 2nd day

Friday 05 April 2013 - 09:30

Minimalism, indetermination
Moderator: Gianfranco Vinay

9h30 ThePopular Music of the American repetitive composers
Pierre-Albert Castanet, University of Rouen

10h15 The ‘post-style’ era according to John Adams: artistic populism or popular art?
Max Noubel, University of Bourgogne, CRAL (Music team)

11h15 The shadow of popular music in the work of John Cage
Anne de Fornel, University of Paris IV, OMF

Pop, Rock Music, Languages
Moderator: Pierre-Albert Castanet

14h The popularisation of art music and vice versa: the examples of Philip Glass and Patti Smith
Stéphanie Genty, University of Évry-Val d’Essonne

14h45 Do You Speak My Language?
Jennifer Kelly, Lafayette College, USA

15h45 The album Goodbye 20th Century (1999): the experimental question of Sonic Youth
Grégoire Tosser, University of Évry-Val d’Essonne

16h30 Round table with participants: What future for classical American art music?

17h30 Summing-up and conclusion of the seminar 

Contact: 
Cdmc (Paris)