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Singing Storytellers: The Lives, Music and Verbal Artistry of Bards in our World
An International Interdisciplinary Symposium hosted by Cape Breton University, in partnership with Celtic Colours International Festival and CBC Cape Breton
October 9th – 12th, 2014
Singing storytellers – griots, kobzars, troubadours, ashiks, gusle players, sean-nós and seann-nòs singers, bards and epic singers, performance poets, men and women from countless narrative traditions around the world – have played a variety of complex roles in their communities and cultures. The long-time focus of study for ethnomusicologists and other scholars of culture, history and memory, they are multifaceted social agents – genealogists, historians, spokespersons and activists, diplomats, musicians, praise singers, healers, and advisors. Wordsmiths and performers, their verbal and musical art have been the subject of studies across disciplines – religious studies, history, music, folklore, anthropology, gender studies, linguistics and literature, to name a few. But recent studies of these bards and their practices in our contemporary world are relatively few.
The study of today’s singing storytellers resonates with theoretical interest in ethnomusicology, humanities and social sciences. It offers opportunities to consider the importance of the individual in society, as well as the politics of representation. Whereas ethnomusicology has, more conventionally, invoked music as a symbol of national pride, cultural and national unity, or presented musical phenomena as typical products of a larger social organicism, this symposium also looks to the ways in which music is historically constructed, socially maintained, individually created and experienced. We will look to examples through which numerous interlocutors, processes, practices, statements and performances continually operate and fluidly reshape one another. We will consider the ways in which cultural performance and production are contingent on intersecting and mutually affecting aspects of experience entwined with identities. Contributing to a burgeoning literature on musicians’ life stories, this topic brings to light the ways in which individuals function within cultural webs along the many avenues they travel — revealing shared practices and ideologies within specific locations and beyond. Aspects of identity and experience are shaped in the context of wider, changing historical, social and cultural pressures – which many singing storytellers deftly negotiate. Singing storytellers provide an opportunity for scholarly investigation that profoundly makes evident the complexity with which experiences and identities are created and performed through the lives, music and verbal artistry of individuals.
Call for Participation
We invite contributions from a rich array of scholars/practitioners/artists alike – to encourage investigations of and engagement with performers and their practices in our world today, through a variety of ways of knowing, and creating and sharing knowledge.
We invite proposals for various forms of presentation, including papers (either individual 20- minute papers with additional 10 minutes for discussion, or panels), keynotes, workshops, performances, roundtables, films and exhibitions (including of photographs and other visual materials, and interactive and multimedia installations).
- Workshops will run either 60 or 90 minutes
- Roundtables will run concurrently throughout the conference
- Theatre and studio space is available in addition to standard conference facilities
***Symposium works will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed, edited collection.***
Submissions for papers or creative presentations MUST include:
- Title(s) – for panel (if applicable) and each individual presentation
- Presentation format/type
- Technical requirements
- 300 word abstract (of each individual presentation)
- 100-150 word abstract (of each individual presentation)
- Panel proposals also require a panel description of 100-200 words
- Each presenter(s) one-page C.V.
- Each presenter(s) institutional affiliation (or indication if you are an independent scholar/artist), including department or division
- Each presenter(s) complete contact information, including postal and email address, and telephone number
ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST INCLUDE ALL OF THIS DETAILED INFORMATION FOR EACH PRESENTER, or your abstract will NOT be eligible for consideration. The detailed information and materials requested are necessary in order for the conference organizers to apply for travel/event funding.
PLEASE SEND YOUR SUBMISSIONS to singingstorytellers@gmail.com by March 15, 2014. The subject line of the email is Singing Storytellers proposal – [name]. PLEASE ATTACH THE INFORMATION and MATERIALS IN .DOC FORMAT.
Please write to us at singingstorytellers@gmail.com if you have any questions! For information and updates, check the conference WEBSITE (www.singingstorytellers.ca).
We look forward to receiving your proposal – and to welcoming you to Cape Breton!
Special Events:
COVERED IN SALTWIRE MARCH 11, 2024! "Tea and conversation with elders at Cape Breton University":
ARCHIVE OF NEWSFLASH ANNOUNCEMENTS:
TransAtlantic Pilgrimage - Celebrating African Heritage 2024
Watch this space for more details to come! This exciting festival includes film showcases plus dance & music workshops, to be held in multiple locations around Unama'ki: Sydney, Chéticamp, Glace Bay, Membertou Heritage Park, on campus and off — and every event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, so come and join in! We are honoured to feature dub poet/performer/historian Dr. Afua Cooper and Afropop/jazz/rhumba musician Mark Lenini Parselelo in this colourful celebration. For more information, or to register for the Teacher Professional Development Workshops, please e-mail sound_communities@cbu.ca or call 902-563-1696.
More details to be found under Events.
March 5th, 2023 | Halifax, NS | Julian Kytasty
1) ICTM DIALOGUES Digital Publication ‘DIALOGUES: Towards Decolonizing Music and Dance Studies’ https://ictmdialogues.org/
2) International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) http://ictmusic.org
3) The Centre for Sound Communities (CSC) https://soundcommunities.org
4) Canadian Society for Traditional Music (CSTM) https://cstm-sctm.ca
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Bandura Master, Kobzar & Composer of Ukrainian Descent:
JULIAN KYTASTY IN CONCERT ~ two dates!
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ICTM PRIZE-WINNERS! Congratulations to our esteemed research collaborators & co-authors* at Membertou First Nation on being awarded the 2021 ICTM Article Prize ~ announced last Saturday at the General Assembly of the International Council for Traditional Music.
The first session of this course took place Thursday, July 22 ~ inspiring and uplifting. If you’d like to join in the second / final session taking place next Thursday, July 29 at 6:30 p.m. Atlantic Time, register here. We hope you’ll join us!
The Centre for Sound Communities congratulates Dr. Sheila Christie on her recent appointment as Chair of the Department of Literature, Folklore and The Arts, and we also thank her for her many contributions to the CSC as she leaves the post of Associate Director. Dr. Christie has exerted truly magnanimous effort in support of faculty and student researchers. She operates on the basis of scholarship and a teaching practice based on care; her thoughtful, dedicated service to the CSC, CBU and wider communities is greatly appreciated by many, as is her commitment and drive, and her impressive ability to get things done. We wish her well in her next chapter!
Join the Summer Celebration! Zoom link is here!
Welcome, Dr. Shauna MacDonald, and thank you, Dr. Sheila Christie! Watch this space for word on a special virtual event coming July 15 to which all are invited!
Registration now open for the Summer Institute 2021 Cantoring Course!
Both sessions of this course take place at 6:30 p.m. Atlantic time.
Session 1 - July 22: Register here
Session 2 - July 29: Register here
Check out the CSC YouTube Channel here to watch a recording of the panel from our June 10 event: Disrupting the Legacies of Colonialism and White Supremacy in Music Schools ~ with thanks to all the participants and registrants in this stellar workshop, as well as to Dr. Dylan Robinson and Dr. Jeremy Strachan for organizing this inaugural DIALOGUES event. [In the coming weeks, we will re-post the video with transcribed text in the hopes of making this ~ and future DIALOGUES events ~ as accessible as possible. Be sure to visit our FB page for news of upcoming events!]
*Coming this Fall 2021!*
Stay tuned for a series of Anti-Racist Pedagogies workshops happening this fall, which will feature a stellar lineup of international scholars and practitioners! For details and registration links, keep checking in on the CSC Facebook page for updates.
New DIALOGUES project workshop to be presented June 10, 2021! Find out more here!
On Friday, May 14, 2021, the Canadian Studies Center, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle presented ‘Singing Sunjata’s Story in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia: A Mali-Canada Musical Collaboration’. The event featured CSC Director Dr. Marcia Ostashewski and research colleague, culture-bearer and internationally renowned musician Lassana Diabaté in conversation and concert. A link to the event video will be released later in May, but for further information about the project, please refer to the Projects menu selection on this website, or find out more on the Bala website: https://balafondiabate.ca/
