Music history is a matter of research, it is a matter of novels, films, comics or computer games. Also: Music history is subject matter to music theater. Performances of music history lie at the center of this conference: Be it André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s opera prologue “Les trois ages de l’opéra”, Hans Pfitzner’s opera “Palestrina” or Franz Wittenbrink’s revue “Die Comedian Harmonists”, Heinrich Berté’s Schubert-operetta “Das Dreimäderlhaus”, Randy Johnson’s musical “A night with Janis Joplin”, or Mauricio Kagel’s Liederoper “Aus Deutschland” – historical musicians, artistic agency and musical artifacts have been negotiated in music theater for centuries. Music theater deals with a broad spectrum of music history, spanning from the medieval troubadours to the present creations of Pop, Rock, Jazz and New Music.

International and interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Music Department at Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, May 9-11, 2019

Argument

Music history is a matter of research, it is a matter of novels, films, comics or computer games. Also: Music history is subject matter to music theater. Performances of music history lie at the center of this conference: Be it André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s opera prologue “Les trois ages de l’opéra”, Hans Pfitzner’s opera “Palestrina” or Franz Wittenbrink’s revue “Die Comedian Harmonists”, Heinrich Berté’s Schubert-operetta “Das Dreimäderlhaus” (engl. version: “Blossom Time”), Randy Johnson’s musical “A night with Janis Joplin”, or Mauricio Kagel’s Liederoper “Aus Deutschland” – historical musicians, artistic agency and musical artifacts have been negotiated in music theater for centuries. Music theater deals with a broad spectrum of music history, spanning from the medieval troubadours to the present creations of Pop, Rock, Jazz and New Music. Furthermore, music history on stage is an international phenomenon that can be found in Europe, as well as for example the US, Japan or South America.

Initially, the conference will start out asking how historiographical music theater tells its stories, using composition, interpretation, performance, words or images. What distinguishes this inter-medial form of music historiography? And how does it relate to music historiography in other media? What narrative strategies and practices characterize music histories on stage? How do elements of musical theater (music, acting, dance, costume and stage design etc.) construct conceptions of history and how does the audience experience this? The conference regards historiographical music theater to be a part of musical cultures of knowledge, history and memory. Thus, its objective will be to widen the concept of music historical knowledge, taking sound and non-academic levels of the production of music historical knowledge adequately into account.

Since the beginning second project phase of the DFG supported Emmy Noether research group on “Music History on Stage” serves as an occasion to the conference, we would like to present and discuss first findings of our group, while opening the field of research further. Therefore, we invite all interested scholars – explicitly including those of the neighboring disciplines of musicology, such as theater studies, history, sound studies, ethnology, or sociology – to contribute to the discussion by submitting proposals on related themes or methodological questions.

Contributions may include, but are not limited to the following topics:

• Sound, Image, Language and Performance: (Music) Histories in Theater
• Inter-medial Interdependences: Music History Between Novel, Theater and Film and Other Media
• Perceptions: Seeing, Hearing and Experiencing Music History
• Popular History and the Academy: (Music) Historical Cultures of Knowledge
• Places, Regions and Ensembles of Historiographical Music Theater
• Diva, Genius, Devil’s Fiddler: Stage Figures and Artist Images
• The Middle Ages in Music Theater
• Music, Politics and Contemporary History on Stage

Of course other related ideas are welcome as well.

Submission guidelines

Please send us a proposal (max. 250 words) for a talk, including a short biography

no later than October 15, 2018

at Dr. Anna Langenbruch (anna.langenbruch@uni-oldenburg.de). We will issue a reply until November 2018.

Conference languages are German and English.

Further information on the Emmy Noether research group “Music History on Stage” can be found here: http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/musikgeschichte-auf-der-buehne/.

Scientific Committee

Emmy Noether-research group "Music History on Stage" 

• Dr. Anna Langenbruch (University of Oldenburg)
• Daniel Samaga, MA (University of Oldenburg)
• Clémence Schupp-Maurer, MA (University of Oldenburg)