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January 18, 2014
MORE ABOUT SINGING STORYTELLERS… As ethnomusicologist Phil Bohlman writes of epic, the historical core of bardic material, it: provided the framework for the classical, the foundation of human creativity and history that was true to the past. The author (Bharata) or authors of the Natya Shastra constructed the Brahmanic past out of the narrative imagining of the Rama; the author (Homer) or authors of the Iliad and the Odyssey were no less obsessed in writing multiple pasts in the classical voice of singular authority. Epic diverted the ethnographers’ gaze to the past, Johan Gottfried Herder in the eighteenth-century Central Europe, no less than Ibn Khaldun in fourteenth-century North Africa, turned to the epics of al-Andalus from even earlier centuries to search for the meanings of Europe at its historical beginnings. (Bohlman 2012: ix) The epic singers and bards and new kinds of singing storytellers of today continue to engage memory and history in powerful ways. Rather than merely echoing the past, though, contemporary singing storytellers “sing in active voice of a modern and changing ethnomusicology” (Bohlman 2012:ix). They sing and tell stories of a modern and changing world, in ways that engage historical practices and new media, too. Who are the important singing storytellers of today – and what stories are they telling? What are they singing about? To what ends? What roles do they play in relation to culture and the arts, history and memory, belief, health and wellbeing, politics, economics and other realms? How do they craft their words and musics? How do they sound – how do their performances appear? How are historical traditions and practices a part of to contemporary performances? Where and in what contexts do today’s singing storytellers create and perform, and for whom? How does their creative work shape – and how is it shaped by – the worlds around them? What their lives are like day to day – and how do issues and circumstances of our contemporary lives shape their broader experiences, production and performance? For example, how do mobility, migrancy and hybridity – creative and hybrid worlds in motion – either enable or constrain production and performance, and subjectivities? These are just some of the questions we invite you to consider.

Special Events:

COVERED IN SALTWIRE MARCH 11, 2024! "Tea and conversation with elders at Cape Breton University":

https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/lifestyles/photo-tea-and-conversation-with-elders-at-cape-breton-university-100946795/

TeaWithElders-FINAL

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.

TransAtlantic-SOCIAL

March 5th, 2023 | Halifax, NS | Julian Kytasty

Links referred to in above image:

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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Celebrating Black Musics & History in Unama’ki 2022 ~ Don’t miss this mega-event!

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Exciting concerts, workshops and talks — all part of the Festival of Ukrainian Heritage, co-hosted by Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church and The Centre for Sound Communities — all taking place at the church and its Ukrainian Hall, 49 West Street in Sydney, Oct. 19 - Nov. 24, 2022. Let’s Celebrate & Learn: Разом … ‘Razom’ … Together! [See ‘Festival of Ukrainian Heritage’ for links.]

Bandura Master, Kobzar & Composer of Ukrainian Descent:

JULIAN KYTASTY IN CONCERT ~ two dates!

 

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CSC ARTICLE PUBLISHED in ‘Passages and Prosperity’, newsletter of ANSA / African Nova Scotian Affairs.
See pages 16 and 17 of the Fall 2021 issue, here.
CSTM/SCTM CONFERENCE (registration links here) and DIALOGUES EVENTS (registration links here) HAPPENING NOW!
BREAKING NEWS! MONDAY, NOV. 1, 2021 at 5:15 p.m. Atlantic Time — On CBC’s Mainstreet Cape Breton, Wendy Bergfeldt interviews the winners of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s 2021 Helen Roberts Prize. Their article, ‘Fostering Reconciliation through Collaborative Research in Unama’ki: Engaging Communities through Indigenous Methodologies and Research-Creation’, was described by the prize committee as “standing out as particularly significant for our field and our society … This is incredibly important, even urgent work.”
The CBC interview can be heard here.
Congratulations to the co-authors:  Membertou First Nation Councillor Graham Marshall, Knowledge-keeper Clifford Paul, former youth program co-ordinator Shaylene Johnson and CSC director Dr. Marcia Ostashewski.

READ THE ARTICLE THAT WON THE 2021 ICTM PRIZE HERE:

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.

See it here, at 2 minutes 30 seconds:
* Membertou First Nation Councillor Graham Marshall
* Traditional Knowledge-Holder Clifford Paul
* Former youth program co-ordinator Shaylene Johnson,
co-writers with CSC Director Dr. Marcia Ostashewski

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/