MAPPING MUSIC HISTORY

"Historical musicologists are now paying greater attention to the geographical contexts in which past performances took place. Fuelled by the increasing accessibility of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, they can now also visualize and analyse complicated trends across time and place with greater ease than ever before. Building on work in contemporary music studies and urban sound studies, this network will ask what is at stake in turning to maps as objects and methods in music history and heritage. These questions are not merely methodological but also political. Part of the premise of this network is that cartography has never been innocent or neutral. Given that more and more musicologists are plotting their findings onto two-dimensional representations of the world, it is vital to establish a critical forum for the mapping of the musical practice - past, present and future.

The network will take the form of four meetings bringing together participants from across disciplines (musicology, literature, theatre, architecture, geography, heritage, urban studies, digital humanities) and sectors (academic research, archives and museums, arts consultancy and urban planning). Newcastle University will host the first and largest meeting (c. 35 people), which will take stock of current work across the range of disciplines and professions represented in the network. Liverpool University will host the second, smaller meeting (c. 20 people), which will focus on heritage and tourism as contexts for mapping music history. Harvard University will host the third meeting (also c. 20 people), which will focus on music and colonial mapping in the long nineteenth century. The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London will host the final meeting (again c. 20 people), which will focus on sound and urbanism as contexts for mapping music history."