CFP: Sustainable Sounds: Interrogating The Materials of Music Making Technologies

Date: Saturday 11 May 2019

Venue: St. Cecilia’s Hall Concert Room and Music Museum, University of Edinburgh

The business of musical instrument manufacturing has grown over the last two centuries from a largely home-based craft industry to a globalized mass production industry. The range of materials used to make instruments has also increased: from renewable woods to precious metals, and from plastic to the data and energy consumption of virtual instruments. How has the changing materiality of instruments affected musical culture – economically, aesthetically, and ethically? We invite proposals for a one day conference on musical instruments, sound technologies, materiality, and sustainability. We welcome proposals for individual presentations on any aspects of musical instruments (and other music- and sound-making technologies) relating (but not limited) to the following topics:

Materials of musical instruments

Environmental impact, ethics, and ecologies of the instrument manufacturing sector

Geographical and socio-cultural transfer and travels of the materials that make up sound objects and musical instruments

Musical instruments/technologies and globalization

Social and cultural histories of musical instrument making

Sustainable instrument-making in the 21st century

Conservation and preservation of musical instruments

Musical technologies and environmental concerns

New methodologies regarding the analysis and study of musical instruments related to their materialities, movements, ecologies, and sustainability

Papers that address instruments in the University of Edinburgh’s Musical Instrument Collection at St Cecilia’s Hall are especially encouraged. For more information about the collection, visit the website: http://www.stcecilias.ed.ac.uk/, or https://collections.ed.ac.uk/.

The program committee consists of Matt Brennan (chair), Paul Harkins, Jenny Nex, and Jillian Rogers. All presentations will be limited to 15 minutes. Submit an abstract of no more than 250 words no later than 15 December 2018 to musicsustainability2019 @ gmail.com