The role of piano music, and the piano manufacturing industry in Australia's cultural history. This project aims to re-examine Australia's cultural heritage through a study of the history of the piano. The study will research the Australian piano manufacturing industry; the piano roll recording industry and a significant group of pianist composers.
Rediscovering Australia's Musical Achievements: Creating Critical Editions of Significant Scores. Many Australian music manuscripts languish in archives and collections unperformed, unrecorded, and little known. The project aims to create critical editions of selected manuscripts, consolidating and making available work I have already done. Scholarly editing of manuscript scores is not copy editing, but a highly skilled process requiring extensive knowledge of musical styles and an informed abil ....Rediscovering Australia's Musical Achievements: Creating Critical Editions of Significant Scores. Many Australian music manuscripts languish in archives and collections unperformed, unrecorded, and little known. The project aims to create critical editions of selected manuscripts, consolidating and making available work I have already done. Scholarly editing of manuscript scores is not copy editing, but a highly skilled process requiring extensive knowledge of musical styles and an informed ability to interpret composer's intentions. The need is urgent. Many manuscripts are in a serious state of deterioration. It is through the dissemination of our music in printed form that performers, scholars, and educators - nationally and internationally - can give it deserving attention.Read moreRead less
Chanted tales from Highland New Guinea: a comparative study of oral performance traditions and their role in contemporary land politics. In parts of Highland PNG there are flourishing traditions of epic-like chanted tales. Often dealing with relationships between people and land, these are a highly valued cultural resource. From the perspective of comparative poetics they are one of the clearest known examples of measured verse that has developed independently of alphabetic or syllabic writing. ....Chanted tales from Highland New Guinea: a comparative study of oral performance traditions and their role in contemporary land politics. In parts of Highland PNG there are flourishing traditions of epic-like chanted tales. Often dealing with relationships between people and land, these are a highly valued cultural resource. From the perspective of comparative poetics they are one of the clearest known examples of measured verse that has developed independently of alphabetic or syllabic writing. This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of investigators to analyse the wide range of styles in which these narratives are performed, and further the understanding of their implications for cross-cultural study of verbal art and the politics of land ownership in present-day Papua New Guinea.Read moreRead less
Yolngu Music: Anthropological and Indigenous Perspectives. The study of Yolngu music has involved some of Australia's most eminent anthropologists and ethnomusicologists, who have gone on to lead the development of their respective disciplines in this country. The history of this research is also very important to Yolngu people themselves, who have a deep intellectual interest in the music of their forebears and a profound desire to recover their cultural resources, which were recorded over the ....Yolngu Music: Anthropological and Indigenous Perspectives. The study of Yolngu music has involved some of Australia's most eminent anthropologists and ethnomusicologists, who have gone on to lead the development of their respective disciplines in this country. The history of this research is also very important to Yolngu people themselves, who have a deep intellectual interest in the music of their forebears and a profound desire to recover their cultural resources, which were recorded over the last 75 years. This project is a critical historical investigation of Yolngu music, from the inter-related perspectives of the musicians who produced it and the scholars who studied it.Read moreRead less
Towards efficient real-time generation of detectable musical macrostructure. Efficient generation of detectable large scale musical structure is needed for commercial audiovisual applications, and for creative music making. But computer mediation of music has focused elsewhere: on sound synthesis and sequencing, editing, mixing and notation. I will apply computational processes like the handling of chunks of genetic information in evolution, to generate large scale musical structure. I will con ....Towards efficient real-time generation of detectable musical macrostructure. Efficient generation of detectable large scale musical structure is needed for commercial audiovisual applications, and for creative music making. But computer mediation of music has focused elsewhere: on sound synthesis and sequencing, editing, mixing and notation. I will apply computational processes like the handling of chunks of genetic information in evolution, to generate large scale musical structure. I will control segmentation; framing of internal segments; spatialisation; and the overlaying of separable musical streams. Expert cognitive assessment of the resultant structures will be investigated, and theories of segmentation, streaming and their relationships with expression and affect developed and tested.Read moreRead less
Working the Field: Creative Graduates in Australia and China. The research seeks to understand how graduates of creative arts programs in Australia and China build creative vocations. It investigates the motivations for and rewards of unpaid cultural work across three areas of graduate work (visual arts, creative writing and performance) in two United Nations-recognised Creative Cities: Melbourne and Shanghai. Such research is of high significance for curriculum developers, as studies show that ....Working the Field: Creative Graduates in Australia and China. The research seeks to understand how graduates of creative arts programs in Australia and China build creative vocations. It investigates the motivations for and rewards of unpaid cultural work across three areas of graduate work (visual arts, creative writing and performance) in two United Nations-recognised Creative Cities: Melbourne and Shanghai. Such research is of high significance for curriculum developers, as studies show that employment outcomes for creative arts graduates remain very poor, despite a growing cultural economy. The project is expected to lead to a theoretically innovative, evidence-based and globally transferable account of the practical economy of arts work, one that can assist creative arts programs to better prepare students.Read moreRead less
Reclaiming indigenous performance in southeast Australia, 1935-75. This project aims to reframe a period of Australian history, the Assimilation era (1935-1975), to demonstrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders' active intervention in public affairs through performances of music and dance. The project will collaborate with present-day communities aiming to construct an alternative history of cultural resilience and agency. Outcomes directed at academic, community and public audiences aim to ....Reclaiming indigenous performance in southeast Australia, 1935-75. This project aims to reframe a period of Australian history, the Assimilation era (1935-1975), to demonstrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders' active intervention in public affairs through performances of music and dance. The project will collaborate with present-day communities aiming to construct an alternative history of cultural resilience and agency. Outcomes directed at academic, community and public audiences aim to better inform current debates on Australian identity, support the work of contemporary practitioners, build international networks and validate histories hitherto hidden at the heart of Australian nationhood.Read moreRead less