Conference to spotlight music in broadcasting

Specialists from various broadcast media will gather at McMaster's Downtown Centre this weekend to examine the political, bureaucratic, corporate and commercial structures that inform and regulate the nature of music in broadcasting.

Participants will examine the ways in which music broadcasting expresses and creates “imagined communities” based on class, region, gender, etc.; the manner in which listeners in “body and spirit” experience music on the radio, in television and on the internet; how the dispersal of musical sound through broadcast media shapes notions of space; and the phenomenality of music in broadcasting.

The international conference, called “Over the Waves: Music in/and Broadcasting”, will be held this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday (March 4-6), at the McMaster Downtown Campus (Friday and Sunday) and the Sheraton Hamilton Hotel (Saturday).

There will be two keynote addresses. The first will be presented by Anahid Kassabian (Fordham University, New York) on “Listening: the Hole in the Middle of Media Studies, Film Studies, and Popular Music Studies” on Friday at 11:30 a.m. The second will be presented by Jenny Doctor (Trinity College of Music, London) on “Broadcasting – Concerts: Confronting the Obvious” on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

Session topics range from “Ambient Music” to “Virtual Convergences” and “Rock Subversion and Stardom.” The conference features 37 presenters representing 10 countries and four continents. Conference activities include a screening session of television series musicals on Saturday, two roundtables involving representatives of the broadcast industry and academics working in the field, and a concert on Sunday at Convocation Hall.

More details about the conference is available at http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~admv/overthewaves