Word and Music Studies: Eighth International Conference (2011)

August 3 – 6, 2011

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

It is our pleasure to invite you to Santa Fe for the Eighth International Conference of the International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA). The local organizers are Deborah Weagel, of the Department of English at the University of New Mexico, and Jessie Fillerup, of the Department of Music at the University of Mary Washington. Simon Williams, of the Department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has also assisted with arrangements involving the Santa Fe Opera activities.

The conference will be organized into three sections, the first being devoted to the primary theme of “Voice in Words and Music”. This section will focus on ‘voice’, which is a topic of central concern in any study of artistic mediation, namely, the question about the nature of the source of an utterance, about the agent transmitting the utterance, of ‘who is speaking’. The second section, “Surveying the Field”, involves papers that deal with general theoretical and methodological questions intrinsic to the established scholarly field of Word and Music Studies. Scholars participating in these two sections need to limit their contributions to 30 minutes. The conference will also include a section of “Word and Music Studies Working Papers” (replacing the former “Words and Music Studies Forum”, a change due to the recent formation of a separate WMA institution for emerging scholars in the field, the “Word and Music Association Forum”). This section will include shorter (15-minute) papers which reflect work-in-progress in the field of Word and Music Studies.

Conference Venue

The conference will be held in the Sunrise Room at the Santa Fe Sage Inn, located just a few blocks from the main plaza, and at the Santa Fe Opera House, located 6 – 7 miles outside of the city center. Santa Fe is one of the oldest capital cities in the United States and is the site of the oldest continuously occupied public building in America, the Palace of the Governors. It is known for its rich history, unique architecture, food, museums, art galleries, cultural events, stunning Southwest landscape, and music, including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. D. H. Lawrence wrote of this area: “The moment I saw the brilliant, proud morning sun shine high up over the desert of Santa Fe, something stood still in my soul.” Travel and Leisure magazine rated Santa Fe one of the top three travel destinations in the United States.

Conference Activities

Events planned for the conference include an informal opening reception at 5:00 – 7:00 on Wednesday, August 3, at the Sunrise Room of the Santa Fe Sage Inn; a backstage tour, a concert by WMA members, and a meal at the Santa Fe Opera House on Friday, August 5; and on the final day a tour of the Indian Pueblo and Spanish cultures of New Mexico. The tour, our Saturday excursion on August 6, will include lunch at the Painted Parrot Buffet of the Buffalo Thunder Resort; a visit to an Indian Pueblo famous for its pottery; a stop at a high cliff which offers spectacular views of the region; and a tour of the Spanish village of Chimayo with its historic church, crafts, and food. To conclude the excursion, we will enjoy a final meal together at the historic Hacienda Rancho de Chimayo restaurant. WMA participants will be free during the evenings to attend the opera (and its various activities, including dinners and lectures), the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale performances, or enjoy the general festivities of the historic plaza. Those who go on the Saturday excursion may not return in time for evening concerts or the opera.

Santa Fe Opera

The Santa Fe Opera season will be in full swing when the WMA conference is in session. As in every year, the season comprises five operas, four of which will be playing during the conference. The season is distinguished by a repertory which mixes established works, usually staged in innovative productions, with lesser performed works from the classical and contemporary repertoire. The Santa Fe Opera House is one of the most spectacularly placed theatres in the world, offering views from the auditorium of the surrounding desert and the Jemez mountains in the distance.

The operas playing during the conference are as follows:

There will also be performances of the fifth production, Gounod’s Faust (Dir.: Stephen Lawless. Cond.: Frederic Chaslin), on Mons. August 1 & 8.

Tickets for performances are currently on sale and can be purchased by contacting the website of the Santa Fe Opera. We encourage conference participants to purchase tickets early for the best selection, as it is not uncommon for tickets for certain performances to sell out.

Transportation to the Santa Fe Opera

Please note that the opera house is located outside the city centre and requires a private car, rental car, taxi, or pre-arranged shuttle service for transportation. Free parking is available. The opera house is not accessible by the local bus service.

Accommodations

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Santa Fe Sage Inn, for the conference rate of US $ 117 per night (plus tax and fees), August 3 – 7 (check-out), for a Double Queen or King. This hotel offers complimentary parking (excluding motor-coaches), complimentary downtown shuttle service, a ‘Healthy Start’ breakfast, an outdoor heated swimming pool, complimentary local calls, a 24-hour front desk, a business centre, a guest laundry facility, and a fitness centre. More deluxe accommodations can be arranged, if so desired, at the Hotel Santa Fe, the Eldorado Hotel and Spa, the historic La Fonda Hotel, or any other of Santa Fe’s premium hotels. If you choose to stay at a hotel other than the Santa Fe Sage Inn, you can book the room yourself.

Transportation to Santa Fe

The nearest major airport is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. From the airport, there are three main ways to travel to Santa Fe, which is about fifty miles north of Albuquerque: 1) car rental, 2) taxi, and 3) airport shuttle, which is the most economical, usually requires reservations, and should take you directly to your hotel.

Conference Fee

If you are a member of WMA, the conference fee is included in your annual membership dues. For non-members, the conference fee is US $30 and US $20 for students and accompanying persons. This fee does not include activities, excursions, or meals.

Provisional List of Speakers and Their Papers

Voice in Words and Music

da Sousa Correa, Delia (Milton Keynes): “Voice and Vocation in the Novels of George Eliot”

Englund, Axel (Stockholm/Stanford, CA): “Whose Heimkehr?: Readings and Singings of Heinrich Heine’s Personae in Post-War Germany”

Fillerup, Jessie (Fredericksburg, VA):  “Composing Voices and Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole”

Gruber, Gerold (Vienna): “Voice and Voices in Oratorios”

Halliwell, Michael (Sydney, NSW): “‘Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty’: Reflections on ‘Voice’ in the Operatic Adaptation of The Great Gatsbyand Sophie’s Choice”

Kramer, Lawrence (New York, NY): “The Voice in/of Opera”

Kupfer, Diana A. (Heidelberg): “Toneless Voices/Voiceless Tones: Voicing and De-Voicing Samuel Beckett’s Writings”

Mosley, David L. (Louisville, KY): “Listening to Kierkegaard’s Don Giovanni”

Petermann, Emily (Konstanz): “Creating an Individual Voice: Jazz Rhythm and Timbre in Xam Wilson Cartiér’s Novels”

Riethmüller, Albrecht (Berlin): “Homer’s ‘Doh!’: Voice Between Singsong and Speech”

Samuels, Robert (Milton Keynes): “Schubert’s Instrumental Voice”

Stougaard Pedersen, Birgitte (Aarhus): “Voice and Presence in Music and Literature: Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (1931)”

Urrows, David (Hong Kong): “La Castrata and the Voices in My Head”

Wahlfors, Laura (Helsinki): ”Resonances and Dissonances: Listening to Waltraud Meier’s Envoicing of Isolde”

Williams, Simon (Santa Barbara, CA): “The Voice of Denied Departure: Così fan tutte”

Wolf, Werner (Graz): “‘Voice’ in Literature and Music: a Systematic and Critical Perspective on the Usefulness of the Term from a Transmedial Point of View”

Yoshida, Akemi (Kanagawa): “Operatic and Narrative Voices in George Sand’s Consuelo (1843) and George Moore’s Evelyn Innes(1898)”

Surveying the Field

Nitta, Takayuki (Paris): “Open the Hermeneutic Windows!: Towards an Aesthetic of ‘Regietheater’ in Opera”

Word and Music Studies Working Papers

Decombel, Sarah (Ghent): “Musicalization in Music Criticism: an Italian Case Study”

McAdams, Charity (Edinburgh): “Indefiniteness, Ethereality, and Unarticulated Meaning: Examining the Relationship between Breath and Music in Edgar Allan Poe’s Prose”