International music conference focuses on new research area

The conference “Over the Waves: Music In/And Broadcasting” drew together scholars from Canada, the U.S. South America, and Europe this past weekend at McMaster's Downtown Centre to share their research on music and radio, television, film and the internet.

Organized by Christina Baade, Sandy Thorburn and Jim Deaville, faculty members in the School of the Arts, the conference was the first of its kind: scholars from a range of disciplines, including musicology, communication studies and sociology, have been interested in the ways music functions in these broadcast media for some time, but there has never been a conference devoted specifically to this important subject.

Understanding the pervasive role of music in the media is crucially important, since it often shapes how we are to understand sitcoms, news broadcasts, films and other broadcasts. Presentations included ways in which music was used in Brazilian news casts after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, women's music on Canadian college radio, the function of music used in title sequences for the CSI television series, and the social functions of classical music broadcasting on Dutch public radio. Keynote addresses were given by Anaid Kassabian (Fordham University), author of Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music and Jenny Doctor (Trinity College, London), author of The BBC and Ultra Modern Music, 1922-36. Click here to view the full program.