The seminar series "Looking at Music. Comparative perspectives", organized by the Centre for Comparative Studies (CEC-FLUL), intends to constitute a space for debate and interdisciplinary reflection on music in its different aspects and in a comparative perspective. Studies about music have grown in the last decades and today are part of several departments and scientific fields. The plurality of looks on music and the analysis of its performative and discursive practices, introduced new analytical tools and distinct forms of interpretation. Intermediate studies, on the other hand, invite us to approach music in relation to other media and artistic forms, from visual arts to poetry. The cycle of seminars "Looking at Music. Comparative perspectives" proposes to examine various ways of interpreting music.

A regular activity of the Centro de Estudos Comparatistas, co-organized by CITCOM - "Citizenship, Critical Cosmopolitanism, Modernity/ies, (Post)Colonialism" & THELEME - "Interart and Intermedia Studies".

Organizers

Marcos Cardão (CEC-FLUL) and Pénélope Patrix (CEC-FLUL). 

Participation

online

entrada livre / free entrance

access link

Meeting ID: 898 8928 4998

Password: 826069

The session will take place in English. Questions in Portuguese, French and Spanish are welcome, organizers will translate

Programme

15 jan. 2021, Music and confinement

14h30-16h (UTC+00)

• João Pedro Cachopo,  The Rebirth of Opera from the Spirit of Social Distancing? Challenges, Opportunities, and Prospects for the Future

Due to the current pandemic and the demands of social distancing associated with it – be it under lockdown or in the so-called new normal – the performing arts are facing an unprecedented crisis. What in the course of the last century became a possibility – the recourse to audiovisual technologies of recording and transmission – has suddenly appeared as a necessity of sorts. In this paper, I claim that this crisis represents not only a challenge but also an opportunity for the performing arts. On the one hand, there is no denying that the new constraints have had a strong, indisputably negative impact on the field. On the other hand, they have also lent themselves to new explorations. In the context of this debate, the well-worn dichotomy between pro- and anti-technology discourses – opposing accolades of the brave new world of digital connectivity to laments on the loss of authenticity and presence – begs for a subtler perspective on the very relationship between art and technology. If the pandemic-driven crisis also represents an opportunity for the performing arts, this has less to do with the marvels of live streaming than with the way in which certain restrictions have fostered artistic imagination and reopened the debate on what it means to perform and create music, theater, and opera. In order to develop this idea, I will turn to a few operatic examples: from Yuval Sharon’s Twilight: Gods to Marina Abramovic’s Seven Deaths of Maria Callas to David Pountney and Alex Woolf’s A Feast in the Time of Plague.

João Pedro Cachopo teaches in the Department of Musicology at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA/FCSH), where he coordinates the Critical Theory and Communication Research Group and the Opera Studies Cluster at the Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music (CESEM). His research interests span the fields of musicology, philosophy, and media studies with a focus on issues of intermediality, remediation, performance, spectatorship, and criticism. He is the author of A Torção dos Sentidos: Pandemia e Remediação Digital (Documenta, 2020) and Verdade e Enigma: Ensaio sobre o Pensamento Estético de Adorno (Vendaval, 2013), which received the First Book Award from the Portuguese PEN Club in 2014. He is also the co-editor of Rancière and Music (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), Estética e Política entre as Artes (Edições 70, 2017), and Pensamento Crítico Contemporâneo (Edições 70, 2014). His work has also appeared in international peer-reviewed journals such as The Opera Quarterly and New German Critique. ​

• Héloïse Rouleau, The Practice of Music During Pandemic Times in Quebec

In March 2020, the World Health Organization described the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic, calling for social distancing, quarantine and confinement. The health crisis disrupted the musical environment in unprecedented ways. The complete cessation of live concerts forced actors from the community to react, as citizens, but also as professionals whose working conditions became, for an indeterminate period, unequivocally transformed. The moment we are currently going through can therefore serve as a forum for reflection on the evolution of musical environments. The study of musical activities in Quebec allows us to take a first look at what happened during the first months of the pandemic, to see how the situation can help us rethink more broadly the practices of institutions, musicians, audiences and teachers who actively participate in musical ecosystems. This short presentation will provide initial insights into the innovative actions of institutions and musicians “entrepreneurs”, the production of Web content during quarantine, the mental health of musicians and their confined audiences, and the upheavals in music education. We will investigate in further details the activities of the musical community during the first months of quarantine. A few examples of content posted online will help us challenge questions of representation and engagement in the production of virtual music performances. Finally, we will address the mental state and well-being of musicians during this crisis, and the potential resiliency factors that allowed them to pursue their professional practice.

Héloïse Rouleau is a doctoral student in musicology at Université de Montréal, in co-tutorship with Université de Liège. After studying communications, she redirected her academic path in musicology, focusing mainly on hip-hop in francophone communities. Her master’s thesis investigates the mobilization of digital medias in the most recent renewal of Québec’s rap community, while her Ph. D. thesis focuses on a similar optimization of digital environments by the french-speaking rap community in Belgium. In addition to assisting the coordination of scientific activities at the Interdisciplinary Observatory for Music Research and Creation (OICRM), she takes part within several of its research unit, particularly working on the study of french music, as well as the study of online musical devices, which lead to the study of virtual practices during the pandemic.