From Authorship and Spectatorship to Usership in Music
 
The Orpheus Seminar will be held on 21-22 February 2019 at Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium.

Proposals (c. 200 words) for 20-minute presentations are invited from artists/researchers working in all areas of music practice and theory. Alternative modes of presentation, including performance-based presentation/demonstration/film, are particularly welcome.  The convenors hope to produce a publication developed from selected presentations at this seminar.

Topics might include:

  • perspectives on usership in music from other arts, other disciplines – fine art, live art, theatre etc.
  • historical and ethnomusicological concepts of musical use and the ‘user’. Is this issue entirely modern, Western?
  • consequences of usership for aesthetic or critical criteria in music studies
  • the intersection of usership with rhetorical approaches to older music
  • future virtuosity, future expertise in user-oriented musical performance
  • socio-political implications of music in a ‘usership economy’
  • creating dialogue with ‘users’ through alternative structures for education, societies, festivals, labels, outreach
  • ethical issues surrounding different modes of usership in music
  • musical activity after the concert/new modes of engagement
  • going beyond presentational gimmick to a state of real transformation
  • the roles of consensus and individualism in a usership culture
  • the role and relevance of Western Art Music within a usership culture 
Convenors are: Jonathan Impett and Nicholas Brown

Please upload proposals by 15 November 2018.
For more information, please visit the website.