2009 AMS Annual Meeting
At the 2009 AMS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia (November 12–15), the Ecocriticism Study Group held a three-hour session. First, Aaron Allen provided a brief history of ecomusicolgy, and addressed some of the issues the sub-discipline faces, and possible paths for its future. Subsequently, each panelist—Aaron S. Allen (University of North Carolina, Greensboro), Suzannah Clark (Harvard University), Emily Doolittle (Cornish College), Helmi Järviluoma (University of Eastern Finland), Thomas Peattie (Boston University)—provided an introduction of his/her work in relation to ecomusicology. Then, keynote speaker Mitchell Morris explored ways in which music mediates and identifies aspects of desire. Morris’s examples included a segment from the B.B.C. television series “Planet Earth”, Alaskan composer John Luther Adams’s “In the White Silence”, and a track from David Rothenberg’s “Why Birds Sing”. Last, each panelist provided a short response to Morris’s presentation, with time after for audience and panelists to discuss the ideas raised during the session further. Ultimately, the session established a framework for the current methods and goals of ecomusicology as a field of music scholarship, and to stimulated new possibilities for research in this sub-discipline.
The transcript of the discussion is here:
An audio file of the discussion is also available here: