CFP: "Charles Dibdin and his World" (5/26/2014; 11/28-29/2014)

University of Notre Dame London Centre

British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
1 Suffolk Street, London, England
November 28-29, 2014

Deadline: May 26, 2014

CFP: "Charles Dibdin and his World"

2014 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Charles Dibdin (1745-1814), perhaps the most versatile and talented actor, musician, playwright, and songwriter of the 18th and 19th centuries. Across his career Dibdin played the organ at St Bride’s in Fleet Street, collaborated with Isaac Bickerstaff on comic operas, acted at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and numerous other theatres throughout Britain, was director of music at Ranelagh Gardens, performed in blackface as Mungo in his opera The Padlock, translated French opera, opened his own theatre (twice), went to debtor’s prison, toured the country with a one man show, opened a publishing warehouse, wrote novels, memoirs, and a history of the English stage, published three music text books, and composed several thousand songs.

In addition, Dibdin’s sea songs were central to establishing the Royal Navy as the mainstay of British patriotism, in spite of mutiny, sedition, and the press-gang, playing a significant role in uniting a fractious nation after the upheavals of the 1790s. Charles’ private endeavours were also prolific. Family members included his daughter Ann Dibdin Dacre, a talented artist who provided illustrations for Dibdin’s Memoirs. His affair with the actress and dancer Harriet Pitt (1748?-1814) resulted in a daughter, and two sons: Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin (1768-1833), who staged spectacular mock-sea battles in his aquatic theatre at Sadler’s Wells; and Thomas Dibdin (1771-1841), opera librettist, poet, composer and author of numerous theatre-pieces including Harlequin and Humpo, between them continuing their father’s legacy into the nineteenth century.

Such diverse careers touch on almost all aspects of musical and theatrical culture in the late Georgian period, and demand a truly interdisciplinary approach. The premise of this conference is that understanding the life and work of the Dibdin family necessitates a re-examination of the wider world of performance and literary culture of which they were so integral a part. To this end we invite proposals for papers in any discipline on any aspect of the life and work of Charles Dibdin and his family, or that illuminate the world of this subversive, patriotic, irascible, and glorious anarchic writer and performer.

Topics might include:

• Patriotism, propaganda and performance
• Orientalism and the staging of empire
• Blackface and representations of race
• Legitimate and illegitimate theatre
• Celebrity, biography, reputation
• Gender and the public sphere
• Performance practices
• The one-man show
• Music and morality
• Genre and composition
• Origins of the music-hall
• Book history and broadsides
• Theatrical and musical economies
• Music markets, copyright and piracy
• Forms of writing: the novel and the song
• Provincial and metropolitan entertainments

The conference will be in a workshop format consisting of a series of roundtable discussions of pre-circulated papers. Dinner, accommodation, and a performance of Dibdin’s songs will be provided for all participants. Papers will be circulated by November 14, 2014. These will form the basis of a collection of essays placing Dibdin in his world, providing new ways to conceive of the relationships between legitimate and illegitimate theatre, elite and popular entertainment, and provincial and metropolitan performance.

Abstracts (max 500 words) for 3-5,000 word papers should be sent with a short biography to Dibdin200@gmail.com by May 26, 2014. For more information please contact the organisers, Drs Oskar Cox Jensen (King’s College London), David Kennerley (Oxford) and Ian Newman (Notre Dame) at Dibdin200@gmail.com.

This conference forms part of the ERC-funded project “Music in London, 1800-1851”, led by Professor Roger Parker, King’s College London, with support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame.

Special Event: Romantic Heirs "An Evening of Romantic Music" (1/17/2014)

An Evening of Romantic Music

Presented by Romantic Heirs: Receptions, Legacies, and Dialogues

Original settings inspired by Romantic poetry

Sheffield Cathedral, doors open 7pm

January 17, 2014

The Darkling Thrush

Thomas Hardy

Mark McCombs

The Tyger

William Blake 

John Tavener

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

WB Yeats

Fraser Wilson

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

To a Child Dancing in the Wind

The Stolen Child

WB Yeats

John Tavener

I am malicious because I am miserable

Shelley, from Frankenstein (attached)

Ben Gaunt

Porphyria

Robert Browning

Mark McCombs

Song, on a faded Violet

PB Shelley

Jak Laight

The Lamb

William Blake

John Tavener

CFP: North American British Music Studies Association Biennial Conference 2014 (1/20/2014; 7/31-8/3/2014)

North American British Music Studies Association Biennial Conference 2014: Call for Proposals

The North American British Music Studies Association will hold its Sixth Biennial Conference from Thursday through Sunday, July 31 to August 3, 2014, in Las Vegas, Nevada, hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Proposals on topics related to all aspects of British music and musical life in general throughout Britain, the Empire, and beyond are welcome. Those that draw upon interdisciplinary or broader cultural contexts are particularly welcome.

 

Presentations may take a variety of formats, including individual papers of twenty minutes in length, workshops involving group participation, roundtable discussions, lecture-recitals, and themed panel sessions. The Nicholas Temperley Prize will be awarded for the best scholarly presentation given by a graduate student.

 

Proposal format and content

For individual papers, abstracts not exceeding 350 words should clearly present the title, the subject, the methodology, the argument, and the significance of the findings. For presentations in other formats, proposals should be of similar length (maximum 350 words); they should clearly state and justify the intended format, including amount of time requested, and should indicate the originality and significance of the material to be delivered.

Those proposing lecture-recitals must also include recordings of the proposed performer(s) playing examples of the proposed repertory if not of the exact proposed work(s). Anyone proposing a lecture-recital should attach a short biography. All proposals should also indicate audio-visual needs (in a separate line at the end of the abstract, not included in word count). Students should identify themselves as such on the non-anonymous copy of the abstract (see below), so that their papers can be considered for the Temperley Prize.

Proposal transmission procedures

Proposals should be sent via e-mail attachment to the Program Committee Chair Roberta Montemorra Marvin (roberta-marvin@uiowa.edu) with the subject-line NABMSA 2014 Proposal. The e-mail should carry two attachments in Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx, or .rtf only). The first attachment (file name = anonymous submission_short title of the proposal) should include within the text only title and abstract. The second attachment (file name = your own last name_short title of the proposal) should contain within the text your name, address, telephone, fax, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation or city, along with the paper title and abstract. The content of this second attachment should also be pasted into the body of the e-mail in case of transmission problems. Audio or video recordings supporting proposals for lecture-recitals are required (demo disc, .mp3 files, etc.) and should be received (electronically) by the same deadline as the abstract (see below). Please contact the Program Chair via email for instructions on how to transmit these materials electronically. Do not send them as email attachments.

The deadline for all submissions is midnight, Eastern Standard Time, January 20, 2014. It is the policy of the Association that all presenters be members in good standing. More information about NABMSA and its activities may be seen on the Association’s web site, http://nabmsa.org/conferences/2014-biennial-conference/ . Submissions will be acknowledged within four days of receipt. Participants will be notified of the acceptance by mid-March 2014. Program Committee for 2014: Roberta Montemorra Marvin (University of Iowa), chair; Christopher Scheer (Utah State University), Derek Scott (University of Leeds); Amanda Eubanks Winkler (Syracuse University)