Rachel Haworth reports on the Singer-Songwriter in Europe conference

PCRN Newsletter November 2012

‘From Adele to Zeca Afonso: The Singer-Songwriter in Europe’ University of Leeds, 13-14 September 2012

International Conference ‘From Adele to Zeca Afonso: The Singer-Songwriter in Europe’  took place at the University of Leeds, 13-14 September 2012.

The label singer-songwriter has been applied to a wide range of artists, including Joan Manuel Serrat, Paolo Conte, Barbara and John Lennon. The use of this and related terms (auteur-compositeur-interprète, cantautore and cantautor to name but three) and interpretations of the singer-songwriter’s work differ significantly according to the cultures in which such music is produced and received.

Over these two days conference, international scholars from different areas (musicology, cultural studies, mondern linguists) focused on European singer-songwriters such as Lucio Battisti, Léo Ferré, Adele and Nacho Vegas, to name just a few. Those case studies generated more general discussion at more theoritical and methodological levels, raising issues such as authencticity and representation, and the very concept of the singer-songwriter related to geography, culture and genre.

Keynote speakers: David Looseley, Nikki Dibben, Lucy O’Brien.

Convenors: Isabelle Marc (Universidad Complutense), Stuart Green (University of Leeds).

See programme (PDF, 523 KB)

The European Popular Musics International Symposium

Participants at the Symposium held in June 2011

The European Popular Musics International Symposium, organised by the PCRN‟s European Popular Musics Research Cluster, took place at the University of Leeds on 13 June 2011.

The study of popular music continues to be an especially precarious terrain to negotiate due to its multi-semiotic nature. Musicology, ethnomusicology, sociology and communication studies have addressed popular music from their own perspectives. In turn, the modern-languages approach has yet to be defined and developed. In keeping with the PCRN’s modern-language and cultural-studies focus the Symposium was intended to promote and facilitate discussion regarding these different approaches to the study of popular musics in Europe, considered as an evolving multi-lingual and multi-cultural space.

The Symposium brought together scholars from a variety of backgrounds (musicologists, modern linguists, musicians and practitioners of cultural studies) interested in the musics which are produced and/or consumed in Europe.

The event was attended by scholars from Leeds and elsewhere, and the papers were as follows:

• Professor David Looseley: „On the Outside Looking In? ‘European Popular Musics’ and the PCRN‟ Keynote speaker
• Dr Franco Fabbri: „Is There Popular Music Out There?‟ Keynote speaker
• Dr Adeline Cordier: „Women Singers: Gender Relations in Post-War France‟
• Dr Alan O‟Leary: „Chart Songs in the Cinepanettone’
• Dr Barbara Lebrun: „Dalida in 1950s France: Mediterranean Exoticism and the Triumph of Euro-Centrism‟
• Dr Duncan Wheeler: „At the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity: Raphael and the Politics of Mass Culture in 1960s Spain‟
• Dr Isabelle Marc: „How Do We “Read” Popular Music?‟
• Professor Kevin Dawe: „The Guitar in Turkey‟
• Dr Rachel Haworth: „The Singer-Songwriter on Stage: Exploring the Notions of
• “Persona”, “Performance” and “Popularity”‟
• Dr Stuart Green: ‘El Chojín: Further Developments in the Performance of Black Identities in Contemporary Spain’
• Dr Sue Miller: „Performing Cuban Music in the UK: Reflections on the Promotion and Reception of Charanga del Norte’s Music Since 1998‟
• James Felix: „Folk or Fake: The Effects of Professionalization on the Perception of Authenticity in Portuguese Fado‟.

The presence of an active audience, including Phd students and prominent scholars (Professors Martha Ulhôa, Diana Holmes, Philip Tagg, Derek Scott and Dr Bob Davis) contributed to a rich debate about issues such as the idiosyncrasy of national approaches and the nature of interdisciplinarity in popular music research.

The Symposium was organised by Dr. Isabelle Marc, with the help of Dr. Rachel Haworth and Dr. Simon Warner and colleagues in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures and the School of Music at the University of Leeds.

See attached programme (PDF, 241 KB)

Isabelle Marc, email: isabelle.marc@filol.ucm.es

Welcome!

This is the blog of the European Popular Musics Cluster from Popular Cultures Research Network (PCRN), University of Leeds.

This cluster is intended to encourage research, collaboration and discussion on the musics which are produced and consumed in Europe (East, Centre, West), considered as a set of multilingual/multicultural historical, political and geographical regions.

Maintaining the PCRN’s modern languages and cultural studies focus, the cluster for the Study of European Popular Musics will address particularly, though not exclusively, issues such as the following:

• European popular music vs. continental popular music vs. Anglo-American popular music.
• National/Transnational popular music.
• National/Transnational audiences.
• Popular music industries in Europe.
• Identity, identities and ethnicities in European popular music.
• European song contests.
• Cultural national/regional thematics
• Song as cultural, musical, performative and verbal text.
• European popular musics in its relation to other cultural forms: e.g. cinema, television, journalism and literature.
• Diasporic musics in Europe.