The Centre for Sound Communities Blog

Post written by Michelle MacQueen Today was our final day of the Colloquium. We drove back to the Centre for Sound Communities from Chéticamp for our last presentation. Our final Keynote presenter was Dr. Christina Leza. She is a cultural and linguistic anthropologist whose research interests include indigenous peoples of the Americas, discourse and identity,…

Post written by Michelle MacQueen Today, we started our own migrations across Cape Breton Island.     First, we stopped at the Highland Village in Iona. We were able to learn about some of the history and cultural practices of Gaels on the Island. We learned a few Gaelic songs and sang them together while…

Post written by Michelle MacQueen We started the second day of the Colloquium with a pair of presentations under the theme Alliances, Networks, Cosmopolitanism: Haitian Transnation and the Black Pacific. We heard first from Dr. Gage Averill. Gage is a renowned ethnomusicologist with an over-30-year history of research into Haitian popular music. He produced an award-winning…

Post written by Michelle MacQueen Today marked the first official day of the 26th International Council for Traditional Music Colloquium. We spent the day at Membertou Heritage Park. Our discussions started with acknowledging the land on which our Colloquium took place: Mi’kma’ki — the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. We talked about the history of Membertou,…

Post written by Michelle MacQueen Today’s events began with a film screening at the Centre for Sound Communities by Dr. Julia Byl, Assistant Professor in ethnomusicology at the University of Alberta.   Julia’s current research focuses on archival work on music and power in Indian Ocean musical cultures. She also does ethnographic field work in…

Post written by Michelle MacQueen Monday’s events featured a public talk by Dr. Kaley Mason, titled Food, Music, and Environmental Justice in South India. Kaley is Assistant Professor of Music at Lewis & Clark College. Prior to moving to Portland, Oregon, he was Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Chicago. He is the author…

Post written by Michelle MacQueen To start off the series of events for the Songs and Stories of Migration and Encounter Colloquium, we had a concert at the Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church in Whitney Pier. The concert featured on one of the world’s premier players of the bandura (Ukrainian lute-harp), Julian Kytasty. A singer,…