Generously supported by The Film Music Foundation, the Royal Musical Association, Music & Letters, The British Academy and the International Relations Office and School of Arts at the University of Surrey.
This conference offers a welcome opportunity to investigate scoring practices at the birth of the sound era in cinematic traditions outside Hollywood and the USA.
Music in the very first sound films from, for example, Europe, Scandinavia, Russia/The Soviet Union, South America, and Asia remains significantly under-explored in the scholarly literature. Without such wider understanding of the early musical development of the ‘talkies’ in non-North-American regions, and without awareness of the degree to which such practices were influenced by, fed into, or countered US/Hollywood models, the history of film music is far from complete.
In an attempt to fill these gaps in knowledge and understanding, the conference presents papers, lecture-demonstrations and a panel session addressing film music in the first years of the sound era, from c. 1928 to the late 1930s, in screen repertoire produced outside the United States. Screenings of early European sound films with newly composed scores, and specially commissioned audio-visual performances will take place on Saturday and Sunday evenings in venues on campus and in Guildford.
The language of the conference will be English.
Discussions with publishers are planned in order to produce an edited volume and a special journal issue of articles developed from the conference.
Conference convenor: Dr Jeremy Barham (University of Surrey)
Conference committee:
Professor Mervyn Cooke (Department of Music, University of Nottingham)
Dr Ben Winters (Department of Music, The Open University)
Dr Holly Rogers (Department of Music, University of Liverpool)
Dr Jeremy Barham (School of Arts (Music), University of Surrey)
Registration closes Friday 11 July 2014.
Full Programme:
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/arts/music/events/film_music_conference.htm
