Programme.

Registration: 9.00-9:30
Welcome: Angela Impey, SOAS


Session 1: Natural Resource Loss and Musical Instruments
Discussant: Henry Stobart, Royal Holloway

9:30 Jennifer Post
Sharing Rosewood, Smuggling Ivory: The Global And Local Politics of Resource Use and Distribution in Musical Instrument Making

10:00 Kevin Dawe, University of Leeds
The Green Guitar: Ecology and Criticism in the study of Global Lutherie

10:30 Aaron Allen, University of North Carolina, Greensboro & Fellow of the American Academy in Rome
Sounding Sustainable: Stradivari, Nature & Culture


Tea: 11:00-11:30


Session 2: Sounds of Changing Landscapes
Discussant: David Rothenberg, New Jersey Institute of Technology

11:30 Stephanie Bunn, University of St Andrews
Environment, Resonance and Image in Kyrgyz Oral epic

12:00 Noel Lobley, Oxford University
Recording the Sounds of Change in the Central African Republic

12:30 Joe Browning, SOAS
Crane calls and shakuhachi sounds: tracing changing music-environment relations in the piece Tsuru no Sugomori


Lunch - 13:00-14:00


Session 3: Music and Indigenous Environmentalisms
Discussant: Jerome Lewis, University College, London

14:00 Henry Stobart, Royal Holloway
Sound sensitivity and climate politics in Bolivia

14:30 Thomas Hilder, Center for World Music, Stiftung Universität Hildesheim
Musical Performance, Indigeneity and Environment: The Politics of Nature in Arctic Europe

15:00 Sian Sullivan, Birkbeck College
Trance Namibia? Juxtapositions of music, dance and desire in a desert landscape


Tea 15:30


Roundtable: Making a Difference?
Discussant: Jennifer Post

16:00 Catherine Botrill, Julie’s Bicycle & University of Surrey
Carbon Soundings: The Response of the Music Industry to Climate Change.

16:30-17:30 discussion

Jerome Lewis, University College London
Musical change and environmental change in Congo forest: the contrasting impact of industrial extraction and conservation.

Chris Low, Oxford University
Music, land and social change amongst the Kalahari KhoeSan

Peter Cusack, London College of Communication
Sound recording as Environmental Journalism


19:00 Evening Concert with David Rothenberg
SOAS, G2 Auditorium (open to all / free entry)

Philosopher and musician, David Rothenberg, is the author of 'Why Birds Sing', published in many languages and filmed as a feature documentary for the BBC. His most recent book, 'Thousand Mile Song', which focuses on making music with whales, is currently being turned into three separate documentary films. Rothenberg’s music is inspired by the melodies and beats of birds, insects, whales, water, and wind; he blends spontaneous musical inventiveness with a sense of rhythm, exuberance, and the listening to nature. As a clarinetist, Rothenberg has performed and recorded with Jan Bang, Scanner, Glen Velez, Karl Berger, Peter Gabriel, Ray Phiri, and the Karnataka College of Percussion, as well as released nine CDs out under his own name. Rothenberg is Professor of Philosophy and Music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His new book, 'Survival of the Beautiful', comes out in the UK in spring 2012. www.davidrothenberg.net