International Conference

MUSIC, OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE

2-3 March 2012 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Address: University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16,

1012 CP Amsterdam

BAKE SOCIETY

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Contents Introduction to the Conference…………………………………………………………………….3

Programme…………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 Abstracts………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7

ANDERTON, ABBY………………………………………………………………………………………7 BEJTULLAHU, ALMA……………………………………………………………………………………7 BELLE, JAN VAN…………………………………………………………………………………………8

BERG, FRANK VAN DEN…………………………………………………………………………….9 BRENNER, MIRIAM L………………………………………………………………………………..10

CHENG, CHENCHING……………………………………………………………………………….10 GRANT, MORAG J…………………………………………………………………………………….11 KOVACIC, MOJCA…………………………………………………………………………………….12

KUIPER, KLAUS………………………………………………………………………………………..13 LA ROSE, ANDREA…………………………………………………………………………………..13

NADRIGNY, PAULINE……………………………………………………………………………….14 NUXOLL, CORNELIA…………………………………………………………………………………15 PETERSEN, ULRIKE………………………………………………………………………………….15

STROUD, JOE…………………………………………………………………………………………..16 TOLTZ, JOSEPH……………………………………………………………………………………….17

WAIGHT, CAROLINE………………………………………………………………………………..18 WINDISCH, ANNA KATHARINA………………………………………………………………..18

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Introduction

Dear conference participants,

Welcome to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam, and to the conference Music, Oppression and Resistance! This meeting is jointly organized by Bake Society for

the Study of Performing Arts Worldwide and The Royal Society for Music History of the Netherlands. The total of abstracts submitted surpassed our wildest expectations, as did their high quality, so it was not easy for the programme

committee to make their selection. The result of their hard work is an international group of speakers and a highly diverse programme with special

emphasis on the themes of: (1) world war and music, (2) contemporary issues and (3) musical censorship.

In looking forward to what the conference brings, we expect to be able to acquire some inspiring insights into the following issues and questions involved in the

themes. Music in conflict and battle

Throughout history music has accompanied battle, be it for practical purposes or as a form of psychological warfare. In our times, too, when battles are fought

with high-tech equipment rather than swords or bare hands, music is still used to this end.

Music, oppression and resistance Leaders who want to control their subjects use music as a tool to alter the way

people act, think and function. How does music stimulate some thoughts and suppress others? But if music can be used to oppress, it can also function to set both mind and

body free. Music can be used to critique social structures and even society as a whole. How does music have the same ability bottom-up: to demonstrate

against those in charge and reclaim their power? The power of music

Music can be a medium to reach those inward places of the soul, where human motivation and inspiration originate. To control that source of power is equal to

holding a key to power. Is this what makes music such a sought-after “commodity”?

We hope this conference will bring you many fruitful and convivial moments of discussion and debate on these and related issues.

Karl Kügle, president of The Royal Society for Music History of the Netherlands

Adri Schreuder, president of Bake Society for the Study of Performing Arts Worldwide

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Programme

Friday 2 March 2012: morning session – World War and Music

09.30-10.00 Registration (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16)

10.00-10.15 Welcome and introduction 10.15-11.15 Presentations

Anna Katharina Windisch (University of Vienna)

“We'll Wallop the Kaiser” – Community Singing in American movie

theaters during the First World War

Abby Anderton (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

The cultural and social contexts of the Berlin Philharmonic in the early

postwar period

11.15-11.45 Coffee break

11.45-12.45 Presentations

Joseph Toltz (University of Western Sydney; Sydney Conservatorium of Music)

Vesele si zpívá častokrát: the function and place of everyday song in the

Terezín ghetto

Ulrike Petersen (University of California, Berkeley)

“An Acrobat in the Circus Dome” – Rudolf Weys’ 1944 edition of Lehár’s

operetta Der Rastelbinder

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-14.30 Musical workshop (optional) Registration for the workshop is via the online registration form for the

Conference.

Friday afternoon: two parallel sessions – Contemporary issues

Parallel session (1)

14.30-15.30 Presentations

Mojca Kovacic (Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts, Ljubljana)

Christianity as a threat to authority through the perspective of bells and

bell ringing

Alma Bejtullahu (Slovenia)

Music of Oppression, Revolt and Oblivion in Kosovo’s Conflict

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15.30-15.45 Coffee break

15.45-16.45 Presentations

Cornelia Nuxoll (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Underage Soldiers and the Role of Music in the Sierra Leone Civil War

Pauline Nadrigny (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

“Noise equals power”: 20th Century musical creation in the midst of

sound imperialism

Parallel session (2) 14.30-15.30 Presentations

ChenChing Cheng (University of Edinburgh)

The Voice of Lost Nostalgia or Imaginative Colonization? A Case Study of Taiwanese Singer Teresa Teng and Her Enka Performance

Caroline Waight (Cornell University) Irony, Power and Protest in Nina Hagen’s Du hast den Farbfilm

vergessen

15.30-15.45 Coffee break 15.45-16.45 Presentations

Andrea La Rose (Franconian International School, Erlangen)

From Protest to Dialogue, from Oppression to Inclusion (Frederic Rzewski)

Klaus Kuiper (University of Amsterdam) Music as Torture

Plenary

16.45-17.15 Discussion

17.30-18.15 Drinks and Music

18.45-... Dinner

Saturday 3 March 2012: morning session – Musical Censorship

09.00 - 09.30 Registration (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16)

09.30 - 09.35 Introduction

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09.35 - 10.20 Keynote speech

Morag J. Grant (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Towards a social musicology of war

10.20 - 11.20 Presentations

Jan van Belle (Netherlands)

Musical Censorship, War And Religion In Afghanistan

Miriam L. Brenner (Netherlands)

“Hammer, Sickle and Igil”: Evolution of Tuvan Music in the (post) Soviet

era

11.20 - 11.35 Coffee break

11.35 - 12.35 Presentations

Frank van den Berg (Netherlands)

Musical censorship policies in Portugal, Spain and Greece during the

dictatorships of Salazar, Franco and Metaxas

Joe Stroud (University of Edinburgh)

Mechanisms of Censorship Avoidance in the Extreme-Right Music Scene

12.25 - 13.00 Discussion

13.00 Lunch

14.00 Music Freedom Day at the Tropentheater Today, Saturday 3 March, the Tropentheater in Amsterdam is presenting a programme to

gain international attention for Music Freedom Day. This day there will be an

international focus on music censorship worldwide. In the afternoon from 14.00 hours

onwards there will be a discussion about the internet paradox of censorship in music, and

a performance by the Tibetan singer Namgyal Lhamo. The film Tibet in Song by Ngawang

Choephel will be shown in the evening, starting at 19:30 hours.

The theme of this Music Freedom Day is called "the internet paradox: music censorship

and distribution possibilities." Whereas Internet gives opportunities to musicians in exile

to distribute their music, on the other hand it is also a tool for censorship. Think of

iTunes that for example tells artists to change titles of their music. In the afternoon there

is a debate with the following speakers: Francisco van Jole (internet journalist), Mina

Saadadi (born in Iran and founder of ShahrzadNews.org, a news site about issues which

are ignored in Iran) and Frank Kouwenhoven (China expert). The Tibetan singer Namgyal

Lhamo, also called the Nightingale of Tibet, will give a performance.

This afternoon programme is free of charge, but reservation is required at (020) 500

5688.

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Abstracts

ANDERTON, ABBY

The cultural and social contexts of the Berlin Philharmonic in the early

postwar period

With the reintroduction of Entartete Musik (“Degenerate Musik”) by Mendelssohn

and Mahler, how was music re–politicized as the Philharmonic struggled to shed

its former associations with National Socialism? Additionally, how would the

American Military Government, responsible for overseeing cultural life in West

Berlin, manipulate the Philharmonic for its own postwar re–education plans?1

Between 1945 and 1949, the Philharmonic played within highly propagandized

settings: for Allied troops, under the baton of American officers, at private

parties of government officials, and for concerts with American musicians visiting

Berlin. The performative framework the Philharmonic occupied in the postwar

period was arguably as fraught with political subtext as during the Third Reich.

The Philharmonic resumed the role of framing the work of a Military Regime,

though this time in the form of the American Occupational Government rather

than the National Socialists.

As the largest and most prestigious cultural organization within the American

sector, the Philharmonic was under the jurisdiction of American cultural officers,

men specially selected by the Military Government to monitor postwar German

theater and music. Although cultural officers such as John Bitter and Frederick

Mellinger did manage to locate missing instruments and scores, coal, and

musicians for the ensemble, their efforts were tempered by certain abuses of

power that negated the peaceful goodwill American re-education efforts in

postwar Germany hoped to instill. Instead, the Philharmonic was literally

Widerstandlos (without resistance) against the plans of American authorities. If,

as the American Military Government believed, the Nazis had so successfully

mobilized German Kultur as a propaganda tool, then why couldn’t American

authorities do the same thing?

Abby Anderton is a Doctoral candidate in Historical Musicology at the University of

Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her dissertation concerns the American Military Government

regulation of postwar classical music culture in West Berlin. She is currently performing

archival research in Berlin. She holds two BAs in Music and English from Bucknell

University in Lewisburg, PA.

BEJTULLAHU, ALMA

Music of Oppression, Revolt and Oblivion in Kosovo’s Conflict

This paper explores the question of how censorship can shape musical practice

as a relation of cause and consequence. This issue raises a sequence of

questions that are addressed in the paper. In which way does one musical

practice under certain circumstances become music of the oppressed? How does

1 “Application for Employment, John Bitter,” 25 June 1949, RG 260, Box 18, Records of the

Education and Cultural Relations Division, NARA II.

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a musical style or practice become censored by the oppressor and at the same

time admired by the oppressed? What is the turning point when a simple musical

practice outgrows artistic expression and becomes a cultural or political

statement? How does music of the oppressed become a part of the revolt,

resistance and eventually a companion in a violent engagement that will be

forgotten soon after it completes its purpose? The paper focuses on the example

of Albanian music from Kosovo during the political turmoil, demonstrating how

censored music of the student protestors transformed into music of soldiers that

called to action amidst the Kosovo war.

Alma Bejtullahu graduated in Musicology from the University of Ljubljana, and is now

completing her PhD studies in Slovenia. She researches popular and traditional music in

Kosovo and Slovenia, including music of Kosovo Albanians in the context of political

movements for independence. Her scholarly work also includes issues such as female

musicians and gender issues in traditional and popular music of Kosovo.

BELLE, JAN VAN

Musical Censorship, War And Religion In Afghanistan

In this paper a report will be given of three periods of censorship of music in

Afghanistan.

From 1978-1992, the communist government of Nur Ahmad Taraki controlled

music through the Ministry of Information and Culture. Music and musicians were

used (often through force) as means of propaganda, and musicians had to make

tours abroad to other communist countries.

The proclamation of the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1992 and the

Rabbani/Hekmatyar (1992-1996) leaders was the beginning of a return of more

orthodox religious forces; music was still permitted in a confined, private

context, although considered to be against public morals. There was practically

no music on radio and tv, but music on audio cassettes was still available In

Northern Afghanistan under the rule of the Uzbek warlord Dostum, music could

still be played in public places.

The ban on music culminated during the reign of the fundamentalist Islamic

militia known as Taliban (1996-2001) in the strict interpretation of Islamic law,

which led to a total prohibition of music, destruction of all sound recording media

and musical instruments by the all-present Office for the Propagation of Virtue

and the Prevention of Vice. Musicians were beaten, builders of musical

instruments had to look for another job and Radio Kabul, the center for the

diffusion of Afghan music was closed. The only music permitted was recitation

(chants) of Quranic texts and songs of praise of Taliban principles and of the

Taliban brothers who died on the battlefield.

Historically, Quranic recitation and the call to prayer are a form of religious

expression of Islam and it would be considered a blasphemy to call it music. This

indicates that in the Islamic world the term “music” is used in a more limited

sense than in the Western world. Music has been permitted as far as it didn’t

separate the listener from religion and God, an attitude which varied from total

prohibition (music arousing the lower passions) to a more permissive state of

mind, especially concerning wedding music and other family celebrations.

The consequences of these three periods of censorship left deep wounds in

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Afghan musical life, which even today are still apparent, in Afghanistan and

outside the country, because most of the professional musicians went into exile

for their survival, losing contact with their natural environment and their public.

Although little attention was given to the desperate position of Afghan music

during this period in the international media, music has proven to be an integral

part of life in Afghanistan. After the Taliban period and in spite of the poverty of

the people, due to the continuing of the civil war, musical life in Afghanistan is

in a process of recovery and creating a new élan.

Jan van Belle obtained his MA in Musicology from the University of Utrecht in 1989 and

earlier graduated in clarinet, saxophone and bass clarinet from Arnhem conservatoire,

followed up by teaching music and performing. From 1987 to 2001 he made many

research and recording trips to places including Morocco, Bulgaria, Tunesia, Tajik

Badakhshan, Afghan Badakhshan, Northern China and Northern Afghanistan.

BERG, FRANK VAN DEN

Musical censorship policies in Portugal, Spain and Greece during the

dictatorships of Salazar, Franco and Metaxas

The motives why dictators choose to bother artists are normally predictable. The

artists do not share the values that the dictator imposes on his people, or even

attack these values. In reactionary dictatorships, nationalism, national religion

and family hierarchy are normally important pillars of order. These shared values

do not imply that all reactionary or fascist dictators rule their country equally,

given that every ruler inherits another cultural and political legacy. In this paper,

I will compare the censorships of Portuguese fado under the rule of António de

Oliveira Salazar, Spanish copla under Francisco Franco and Greek ρεμπέτικο, or

rebetiko, under Ioannis Metaxas, keeping in mind the pre-histories of these

music genres in the 19th and the early 20th century. All of these genres are urban

popular musics: fado was linked to Lisbon and Coimbra, copla to several

Andalucian towns, and rebetiko to Athens, Piraeus and Thessaloniki. I think it is

crucial to do research on the construction of the concepts in order to know what

fado, copla and rebetiko meant in the era that the dictators took over the rule of

their nations. For all of them, this period was the 1930s decade: Salazar took

power over his nation in 1933, Metaxas in 1936, and Franco gained gradually

more power in Spain during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. The

genres I will treat have very different prehistories. However, at the end of the

19th century cultural influence from Paris, which Walter Benjamin has declared

the capital of the 19th century for its leading role in the way to “modern culture”,

can be perceived in Portuguese, Spanish and Greek urban environments. The

modern culture implies a shift from a traditional, familiar, small-scale society to

an individualistic, image-directed culture. The distribution of this culture brought

so-called revue theatres in Spain and café-chantants in Greece, where the

morals were loose, and where musicians and dancers were sometimes naked or

even could be prostitutes. [Start of Introduction to MA thesis]

Frank van de Berg presents aspects of his final paper MA in Musicology at the University

of Amsterdam. The full title of his thesis is: “Analyzing the cultural clashes between

fascism and modernity in histories of Portuguese, Spanish and Greek urban popular

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music genres during the rules of Salazar (1933-1970), Franco (1936-1975) and Metaxas

(1936-1941).”

BRENNER, MIRIAM L.

“Hammer, Sickle and Igil”: Evolution of Tuvan Music in the (post) Soviet era

The soundscape of the nomadic Urianghai or Tuvan people is firmly rooted in

animistic and shamanistic beliefs. Their khöömei overtone singing is mentioned

in records dating from the time of Genghis Khan. Throughout history these music

traditions have been influenced by those in power. Hammer, Sickle and Igil

focuses on the colonization of Tanna Tuva and the USSR in the twentieth

century.

The applied socialist ideology, followed by the communist dogma deemed local

music traditions an obstacle in the process of uniting the inhabitants of the new

Soviet Union. To this end the very foundations of Siberian life were violently

removed: shamanism was forbidden, its practitioners persecuted, nomads were

forced into sedentarization.

Music was regulated from the heart of Moscow to the outskirts of the steppe

through a “culture and music mandate”. A homogenous “ethnic” musical soup

ensued once musicians were expected to obtain a western music education,

diatonic scales were introduced and orchestras and ballet troupes were formed.

Tuvan music styles and genres faced near extinction because of the harsh

enforcement of the mandate.

Moreover the Russians knew that music was the perfect medium to disseminate

ideology. To distribute a political agenda, doctrine was incorporated in traditional

poems and lyrics of the large and diverse Soviet-ethnic population, transforming

them into (socialist/communist) revolutionary songs. In this paper I examine the evolutionary path of music from Sayan Altai region

throughout the 20th into the 21st century: from free and independent – to regulated and controlled musicianship – and back. It provides insight into the flexible abilities of music enabling it to survive and flourish. The khöömei

technique and the horse-head fiddle igil not only represent the close relationship to their Siberian natural surroundings, they also form a symbol of continued

existence and resilience – a musical legacy.

Miriam L. Brenner graduated as MA in musicology, majoring in world music, at the

University of Amsterdam in 2008. Her master thesis “Hammer, Sickle and Igil” discusses

Central Asian music, while focusing on the Tuvan ensemble Huun-Huur-Tu. She works for

international music festival Music Meeting in Nijmegen and music venue RASA in Utrecht,

and is an active board member of the Bake Society for Performing Arts Worldwide.

CHENG, CHENCHING

The Voice of Lost Nostalgia or Imaginative Colonization? A Case Study of

Taiwanese Singer Teresa Teng and Her Enka Performance

Teresa Teng (1964-1995) is considered to be one of the most influential singers

in Asia during the Cold War Period. Though Taiwanese, her popularity

transcended national barriers from her right-wing totalitarian country Taiwan to

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Communist China as well as Japan, a former colonial power. During the early

1980s Teresa Teng rose up to be the most popular Enka singer of her time in

Japan, even though Enka Music was a post-war Japanese genre of sentimental

ballads drawing their ideological elements from Modern Stylistic Nationalism.

However, in Taiwan and China her popularity was based on a completely

different marketing image: for the former that of a pop idol promoting national

interests by boosting the morale of the army and being using as a right wing

ideology propaganda tool to project their nostalgia of mainland China, while for

the latter an idealistic imagination of a democratic utopia.

The pulse of an era can be felt by focusing on its Popular Music. Through Teresa

Teng’s popularity, audiences in Japan were able to identify in her voice a sense

of lost nostalgia towards their former colony, as well as an imaginative

reconstruction of China’s occupation during the Second World War. Even today

an ideological essence is suggested in all countries of the region when songs of

that time frame are reproduced. The main focus of this paper is to present how

the social context and cultural policy under the control of communist China, as

well as the political ideology contest between red China and Taiwan, worked

hand in hand for designing Teng as a product of misrepresented nostalgia in

Japan. Her story is a prime example for investigating such complexes during

Asia’s Cold War. Such historical backgrounds – not restricted to music alone, but

extended through specific social contexts – can provide a new perspective to

established beliefs about the battle and power of the music.

ChenChing Cheng left a career in Economic Journalism to pursue a PhD in Film Studies at

Peking University and is now on his second PhD in Musicology at the University of

Edinburgh. He is researching music in Cold War Asia focused in China, Taiwan, Hong-

Kong and Japan, and has undertaken fieldwork on audience memories of Teresa Teng's

ability to overcome cultural and ideological barriers during this period.

GRANT, MORAG J. (Keynote Speaker)

Towards a social musicology of war

Despite a growing number of ethnomusicological studies, and extensive work on

music in the context of selected twentieth-century wars, the study of music in

conflict situations remains in its early stages. In particular, relatively little

research has been done on the earlier history of the topic, even in such vital

areas as military music. Theoretical approaches to the topic are also lacking.

How, though, to theorise the role of music and musicality in war? This

contribution offers a possible framework for such a theory from the perspective

of social musicology. I will suggest that in order to understand the roles played

by music in war, we must first recognise that the uses, contexts and effects of

music in conflict situations and in war are as ancient, widespread, varied and

frequent as in any other area of human social life. This reiterates the need for

more intensive investigation and comparison of concrete examples from different

cultural and historical contexts. As a way in to addressing this topic, the main

part of the presentation will focus on a typology and "topology" of music and

musical practice at the most critical juncture of conflict – the resort to acts of

violence, differentiating between three distinct but overlapping geographical and

temporal spaces, namely:

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1. music at the moment of violence

2. music in preparation of violence

3. music in the reporting of violence

Each of these spaces will be briefly explored with reference to concrete examples

taken largely from my own ongoing research, with a focus on older historical

examples. These include the role of music in military flogging ceremonies in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the role of song in establishing

historical narratives on war and just causes, with particular but not exclusive

reference to Scottish song from the eighteenth century onwards.

Morag J. Grant is junior professor of social musicology at the Georg-August-Universität

Göttingen and leader of the research group "Music, Conflict and the State", which was set

up on her initiative in 2008. Her research focuses are the theory and aesthetics of new

and experimental music; the role of song and singing in human social life; music in

Scotland; and music, conflict and human rights.

The research group “Music, Conflict and the State” promotes and conducts research into

the role of music in promoting, facilitating and perpetuating violent responses to conflicts

between social groups and communities. A key aim is to extend the knowledge base for

work on music and conflict, including by integrating case studies from earlier centuries.

Recently, the group also began developing a project on the history, spread and impact of

the use of music in connection with torture.

KOVACIC, MOJCA

Christianity as a threat to authority through the perspective of bells and bell ringing

With their size, volume and spiritual symbolism, bells are one of the important means of political control, or rebellion against church authority. In the course of

European history they often served the needs of political will. Withdrawal of the bells during wars or prohibition of bell ringing curtailed the population not only

materially but also (or above all) spiritually. To control the bells meant to control the symbolic order, rhythm, and loyalties of the people (Corbain 1998). Bells and specially their sound were never solely the property of the church, but the whole

community, so their withdrawal or prohibition of bell ringing often triggered collective resistance. Conversely, today’s isolated cases of rebellion against the

church bell ringing could also be understood as criticism of the church authorities. In the paper, I will present historical facts of the withdrawal of bells and

prohibitions of bell ringing in Slovenia. I will focus on people’s narratives about the consequences of such repression, highlight a period of the communist regime

and its impact on bell ringing and bell chiming tradition in Slovenia and discuss the causes of present-day forms of resistance against the bell ringing. Mojca Kovacic is a PhD assistant researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology of the

Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts. Her research

interest includes folk instrumental music, gender and music, music and cultural policy.

Her doctoral thesis (2009) involved ethnomusicological aspects of bell chiming as a

special feature of Slovene culture.

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KUIPER, KLAUS

Music as Torture

Music has been used as an instrument of torture on many occasions. A recent

and well-known example is the use of hard-rock music (e.g. AC-DC) to terrorize prisoners and deprive them of sleep, in Guantanamo Bay (but not only hard-

rock, as I will illustrate). In wartime situations, sound and music – or perhaps I should say: the sound of music – has been played extremely loudly from airplanes and sound systems on

the ground, to terrorize people belonging to the adversarial party, be they civilian or military.

This kind of practice isn't new: an early example is the use of bagpipes and drums on the battlefield of course, and recently an interesting and curious use of music came to light: playing classical music in public spaces, to chase away

loitering youngsters. Government funded scientific research, particularly in 3rd Reich Germany and

contemporary UK – and slightly later up to now, even more thoroughly in the US – has been done into “no-touch torture”, in which music and sound play (!) a major part (cf. Cusick 2006).

In my lecture I will not differentiate between sound and music, since the boundary between them is a floating (if not fleeting) phenomenon, in this

respect. I will provide examples, and taking into account the views of Attali (1985),

Appadurai (1996), Cusick (2006) and Goodman (2010) among others, I will look into the societal implications of this approach to music, and the problematic of “self” and “other” inherent in these practices; the alienation and mental

breakdown of a subject exposed to “no-touch torture” might just as easily be effected by the very music this subject loves, just by the way the object of love

is inflicted on the subject as a tool of torture. Klaus Kuiper is a composer and a performer on keys, strings and percussion, including

gamelan. His work ranges from electronic music to “world” music practices, from

meticulously notated scores to free improvisation. He is an active board member of the

Bake Society for Performing Arts Worldwide, and studied musicology at the University of

Amsterdam.

LA ROSE, ANDREA

From Protest to Dialogue, from Oppression to Inclusion

Frederic Rzewski’s oeuvre builds bridges between classical, jazz, and folk musics,

between composed and improvised music making, between the composer and

the performer, and between the personal and the political. His treatment of the

classic protest song “Which Side Are You On?” in North American Ballads

demonstrates succinctly how through-composed and improvised music can

combine to make bold, substantial connections between a myriad of ideologies.

Discussions of the role of politics in Frederic Rzewski’s music generally stop at

surface elements: the title of the work, the use of a particular song, and guesses

as to what left-leaning audience the piece is directed at. Similarly, discussion of

the role of improvisation in Rzewski’s work begins and ends simply at the

mention of its existence. Using transcription and analysis of improvisations from

recordings of “Which Side Are You On?” from North American Ballads combined

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with ideas about modeling from Christian Asplund, musicking from Christopher

Small, and Rzewski’s own writings about music, this paper examines how the

political manifests at every level of the music, enabling listeners and performers

to experience a socio-political situation beyond mere sloganeering, and the

essential role improvisation plays in creating that experience.

Andrea La Rose’s pride and joy has been her work as a flutist/composer/board member

with the punk-classical antagonists Anti-Social Music. Since August 2009, she has been

an instrumental performance specialist at the Franconian International School in

Erlangen, Germany. She recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in

Composition at The City University of New York with her research on Rzewski.

NADRIGNY, PAULINE

“Noise equals power”: 20th Century musical creation in the midst of

sound imperialism

Rather than exploring the alternatives “warring power of music/musical

resistance to violence”, this paper focuses on the reaction and response of

certain contemporary musical movements to the violence of sound in our

urbanised societies. Some actually experience this violence as a genuine “sound

imperialism”: “When sound power is sufficient to create a large acoustic profile,

we may speak of it as imperialistic”, writes R. Murray Schafer in The

Soundscape, insisting on the political stake of this domination through sound.

Faced with this power, the reactions and responses of artists is multiple: while

Schafer and his school suggest fighting against the sound imperialism of our

urban environment through reharmonisation and the creation of a sound

ecology, other musicians, such as John Cage, choose to open themselves to the

flood of sonorities and suggest an attentive and open act of listening, while

others, in a noise music approach, decide to re-appropriate this violence to

better contest it.

If the techniques of recording, broadcasting and dissemination of sound, and

more broadly the industrialisation and urbanisation of our lifestyles have fulfilled

the saying of “noise equals power” (R.M. Schafer), we could wonder what

attitude contemporary music can have, faced with this power of sound: a frontal

confrontation, a taming, or an opening of oneself to listen to it, to subvert it?

From the noise music project of futurists to the irenecist silence of Cage, we shall

study these various responses, their artistic and political stakes and lean on the

study of musical works and performances as well as the texts left by the

participants in contemporary music who studied this problematic.

Indicative list of composers and theoretical works: Henry David Thoreau,

Walden, “Sounds”; Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises; Franceso Balilla Pratella;

John Cage, Silence; Robert Murray Schafer, The Soundsape, Our sonic

environment or the tuning of the world; Franciso Lopez; Einstürzende

Neubauten.

Pauline Nadrigny is a doctoral candidate and junior lecturer at Université Paris 1

Panthéon-Sorbonne, and works in the research lab of Contemporary Philosophy (Center

for Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art). Her research focuses on contemporary music, and

electroacoustics more specifically, approached through the study of composers'

theoretical works. Pauline Nadrigny is a musician and regularly gives concerts.

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NUXOLL, CORNELIA

Underage Soldiers and the Role of Music in the Sierra Leone Civil War

The civil war, which raged in Sierra Leone throughout the 1990s, is particularly

infamous for the many atrocities committed towards civilians and the high

numbers of underage soldiers that were forcefully, coercively or voluntarily

recruited for active combat by all warring factions.

The insurgence of the paramilitary Revolutionary United Front (RUF) is

sometimes considered a senseless and apolitical upheaval merely driven by

greed for diamonds; others argue that it is a result of bad governance and

economic failure, which neatly corresponded with the frustrations of a whole

generation of youth facing poor livelihood prospects.

A conducted field research among the former RUF rebels explored the relevance

and impact of music in their lives as soldiers during the Sierra Leonean civil war.

The musical pieces and genres that were meaningful to combatants during

wartime ranged from internationally popular music to local and other African

artists to songs composed within the RUF fighting factions.

Whereas own compositions of soldier songs mainly functioned as morale

boosters, training or praise songs, most notably reggae music proved to be the

most influential source of inspiration for the fighters, bearing the aesthetic of

resistance. Its revolutionary content and protest character served as a means to

create affirmations of the self and the Other in generating a sense of belonging

while at the same time outlining a concept of the enemy. Some examples show

how specific songs were adapted to accompany and amplify actual events during

the war.

The case study discusses to what extent combatants select, relate to or

misinterpret specific songs and lyrics, for example as a source of motivation or

as a way of claiming authority in order to shape and confirm their own reality

and legitimize their actions during the war.

Cornelia Nuxoll is a member of the research group “Music, Conflict and the State” at the

University of Göttingen/Germany. She studied Social Anthropology and Religious Studies

in Marburg, London and Berlin with special focus on ethnomusicology in sub-Saharan

Africa. Within the framework of her PhD thesis, she did fieldwork on the role and impact

of music among juvenile RUF combatants involved in the Sierra Leonean civil war.

PETERSEN, ULRIKE

“An Acrobat in the Circus Dome” – Rudolf Weys’ 1944 edition of Lehár’s

operetta Der Rastelbinder

Operetta’s potential as National Socialist entertainment was noted by Reichspropaganda-Minister Goebbels early on. However, the art form was predominantly Jewish: as a party-internal report from 1934 states, “the purely

Aryan works could not have exceeded 10%.” In order to replenish the Reich’s Aryan repertory, Goebbels founded the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen

(Government panel for the arrangement of music), an institution which has been

mentioned mostly for its “Aryanizations” of classical works including Handel’s

oratorios and Mozart’s Da Ponte operas. However, at least half of its

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commissions were for operettas – revised editions and new works. This paper will provide insights into the Reichsstelle’s dealings with operetta by examining Viennese cabarettist Rudolf Weys’ unfinished 1944 edition of Lehár’s Der Rastelbinder (1902). This work had been Lehár’s biggest success in Vienna;

however, Nazi German performances were impossible because the central

character was an itinerant Jewish peddler. To “rescue” such a propitious work by Hitler’s favorite composer promised both a new standard work for the Third

Reich repertory and an economic success for theaters. Unlike the operetta under consideration, the editor in charge of its “Aryanization” was not an obvious choice – Weys was a staunch pro‐ Austrian social democrat

with a Jewish wife. For him, this official “Reichsauftrag” proved a powerful tool

to dodge many of the Third Reich’s bullets as work of this sort increasingly

turned into an alibi. Weys’s case shows that musical theater could be a lifeline

for authors under the Nazi regime: operetta’s lack of political explicitness

became a welcome feature for nonconformist artists who could not afford to

attract attention or to leave the Reich. Moreover, the Rastelbinder case provides

an opportunity to trace the gradual collapse of the National Socialist system as

those officials who had once promoted operetta became too busy with pressing

war matters to stay in control of cultural affairs.

Ulrike Petersen is a PhD candidate in Music History at the University of California,

Berkeley. Originally from Hamburg (Germany), Ulrike completed a BA in Music (2005)

and an MPhil. in Musicology (2006) at Girton College, Cambridge (UK). She is currently

working on a dissertation that explores aspects of operetta’s political, social, and cultural impact in Vienna during each era of twentieth‐ century Austrian history.

STROUD, JOE

Mechanisms of Censorship Avoidance in the Extreme-Right Music Scene

Discussions of censorship often focus on the right to expression, and whether it

is ever permissible to act against this right. The prototypical liberal position

argues that such censorship is damaging to both society and the individual. This

paper, however, considers the legislation which is designed to establish a

boundary between freedom of expression and hate crime, and the impact this

has on bands associated with the extreme-right music scene. This scene, which

in the mid-1990s was cited as a multi-million dollar industry, has altered

drastically since then, in both style and significance.

This paper focuses on three European nations – Germany, Great Britain and

Sweden – which have particularly significant extreme-right music scenes, and

different legislative approaches to dealing with it. The scene in the United States,

which is protected by freedom of speech legislation, effectively acts as a

benchmark against which developments in other countries can be assessed.

A number of tactics have been used to avoid censorship. In Sweden, printed

lyrics on album sleeves have substituted innocuous words for offending ones in

the songs themselves. Another approach is simply to disregard the relevant

laws; this is most obvious in Germany, where musicians have been imprisoned

for their work, but is also evident in Britain and Sweden where police raids have

targeted music producers and distributors. Countries with less stringent laws can

help to avoid censorship; for instance, German-language websites are hosted in

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Canada, while Polish confederates have manufactured music for export to

Germany.

This paper concludes by considering whether the shift away from confrontational

lyrical themes and musical genres that has been seen over the past decade is

simply another mechanism for avoiding censorship, or whether it is tied to a

broader “softening” of rhetoric in the extreme right in general, related to the

“modernisation” of extreme-right political parties.

Joe Stroud is a second year doctoral candidate in the Music department at the University

of Edinburgh. His research considers the role of music in the extreme-right movement. It

assesses historical developments and contemporary manifestations, focusing particularly

on the use of music in constructing notions of identity. His earlier Master’s research

analysed the output of the British National Party’s record label.

TOLTZ, JOSEPH

Vesele si zpívá častokrát2: the function and place of everyday song in the

Terezín ghetto

Very little evidence suggests any interest in the vast array of cultural activities

generated within the walls of the Terezín ghetto (1941-1945) until the early

1970s, when Joža Karas, a violinist living in the United States, rediscovered

compositions filed away in the Prague Jewish Museum. Following his discoveries

and consequent years of research and lobbying, a body of literature has been

generated on this unique program of cultural life. Because of their potential use

in various propaganda contexts (visits by the International Committee of the Red

Cross and the filming of a “documentary” on the “Jewish settlement”), cultural

activities in Terezín have occupied an ambivalent place in Holocaust readings,

somewhere between the redemptive discourse of spiritual resistance, or fending

off accusations of (unconscious) complicity in the Nazi project of deception, as a

paving stone on the road to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Karas’ book3 on cultural life in Terezín continues to be the primary source in

English regarding life in the ghetto, yet it was by no means comprehensive,

focusing on formalized music activities over the everyday experiences of the vast

majority of ghetto dwellers, most of whom did not experience music at an elite

level. In particular, the place of the modernist-inspired compositions written and

performed in the ghetto reached only a tiny minority, yet they still occupy the

main focus of music in Terezín.

This paper will present contrafactum songs, excerpts from cabaret, children’s

songs and forgotten works from the memories of living Terezín survivors who

settled in Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States. This

private repertoire of music, reflecting a range of experiences, falls under the

rubric of musical testimony: a distinct form of the testimonial enterprise whereby

survivors transcend unnecessary modes of categorization and release the

experience of music back to a fundamental place as an act of human

commentary.

2 (Translation: and often sings merrily) 3 Karas, Joža. Music in Terezín 1941-1945. 1st ed. New York: Beaufort Books, 1985. (2nd edition

published posthumously, Hillsdale, 2008)

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Joseph Toltz completed his doctoral dissertation, “Hidden Testimony: musical experience

and memory in Jewish Holocaust survivors” at the University of Sydney. Joseph is a

professional singer and continues to perform in Sydney’s only professional choral

ensemble, Cantillation. Currently he lectures and tutors at the University of Western

Sydney and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.

WAIGHT, CAROLINE

Irony, Power and Protest in Nina Hagen’s Du hast den Farbfilm

vergessen

The German singer Nina Hagen is famous and infamous for her uncompromising

music and provocative, politically-conscious lyrics. After coming of age in the GDR, she defected in 1976 and released her first album two years later; although she did not produce an album in East Germany, she did release several highly

successful singles with the rock band Automobil. My paper focuses on their first single, the tuneful, effervescent Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (“You forgot the

colour film”), an ironic tale of forgetful tourists. Using Linda Hutcheon’s theorisation of the complex, ever-shifting dynamic between irony and power, I read two very different performances of Farbfilm – the original release from 1974

and a live 2005 rendition on Die DDR Show – through two inversely related contexts: the East German totalitarian state and the ambiguous world of post-

Reunification Ostalgie.

In teasing out Farbfilm’s ironies, I identify the ways in which the song satirises

the GDR’s attempts to build a sense of national identity through the promotion of

domestic tourism, consumption, and technological and industrial progress.

However, I also explore the contingency of irony as protest in the oppressive

political environment of East Germany: despite its subversive intent, the song

was co-opted as an advertisement for VEB ORWO, a company that produced

colour film, flattening its central metaphor into surface meaning. As both an

engagement with and object of material culture, Farbfilm is therefore an unstable

signifier: it is at once subversive and commodified, knowing and banal. In the

twenty-first century version this dynamic is played out yet again, but now with a

different valence: while in its original form the song betrayed the fragile balances

of power inherent in protest, its afterlife reveals the ways in which the GDR

constructed by the West as both an idealised site of resistance and a repository

of kitsch.

Caroline Waight is a PhD candidate in Musicology at Cornell University. She took a

Master’s in Historical Musicology at the University of Oxford and obtained her BA (Music

Tripos) from the University of Cambridge. Research presented in 2011 includes aspects

of guilt and glory in Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and the topic Busoni

writes Bach: machines, mysticism and the music of the future.

WINDISCH, ANNA KATHARINA

“We'll Wallop the Kaiser” – Community Singing in American movie

theaters during the First World War

With the war entry of the United States in April 1917, the American populations'

vigilance towards certain foreign cultural influences was heightened on every

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level. This led to strong recommendations and prohibitions on what or what not

to play as musical accompaniment for silent pictures. The political developments

resulted in an abundance of especially composed songs of a patriotic nature,

which would then be produced as song slides and projected in movie theaters

between the film presentations. The topics of the songs range from “We'll Wallop

the Kaiser” to elaborate Animated song sheet productions of “The Star-Spangled

Banner” to promote the sale of liberty bonds among the public. The practice of

singing along to song slides was famously exercised by Illustrated song

performances, and formed a vital part of the exhibition program of movie

theaters during the years of the Nickelodeon boom in the 1910s.

During the First World War, the Illustrated song was also affected by the

changing political environment and utilized as a tool for propaganda. The practice

morphed into a specific social experience which I refer to as Community Singing,

displaying an emphasis on patriotism to unite the public against the shared

enemy and provide ideological support to the American troops in the battle

zones.

The audience would be encouraged to sing along and according to contemporary

accounts of the trade press, this was met with great enthusiasm. Well-known

public figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Enrico Caruso and others supported these

campaigns by testimony and by putting on benefit performances. In my article I

explore the implications of music as propaganda, embedding the sociological

function of the music in the historical and political context.

Anna Katharina Windisch, a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of Vienna, is

studying early cinema and silent film accompaniment. Her dissertation will be a

comparative study of the soundscape of Austrian and American silent cinema. Since

September 2011 she has held a Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Wirth Institute for

Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

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