The North American British Music Studies Association

The North American British Music Studies Association

Recent Publications: February 2014

 Compiled by Jennifer Oates

Articles

Atlas, Allan W. “On the cyclic integrity of Vaughan Williams’s Songs of travel: one new question – no new answer.” Musical Times, vol. 154, no. 1924 (Autumn 2013): 5-17.

Britton, Andrew.  “The guitar and the Bristol school of artists.” Early Music, vol. 41, no. 4 (November 2013): 585-594.

Sparks, Paul. “Clara Ross, Mabel Downing and ladies’ guitar and mandolin bands in late Victorian Britain.” Early Music, vol. 41, no. 4 (November 2013): 621-632.

Thomson, Aidan J. “Bax and the ‘Celtic North’.” Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, vol. 8 (2012-13): 51-87.

Thomson, Aidan J. “Elgar and the City: the Cockaigne Overture and Contributions of Modernity.” Musical Quarterly, vol. 96 (Summer 2013): 219-62.

Wiley, Christopher. “Music and Literature: Ethel Smyth, Virginia Woolf, and ‘The First Woman to Write an Opera’.” Musical Quarterly, vol. 96, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 263-295.

Books

Aspden, Suzanne. The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Beard, David. Harrison Birtwistle’s Operas and Music Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Calhoun, Scott D., Ed. Exploring U2: Is This Rock ‘n’ Roll?: Essays on the Music, Work, and Influence of U2. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012.

Gilman, Todd. The Theatre Career of Thomas Arne. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2013.

Gloag, Kenneth and Nicholas Jones, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Michael Tippett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Korczynski, Marek, Michael Pickering, and Emma Robertson. Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Mackenzie, Bridget. Piping Traditions of the Isle of Skye. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012.

Mackenzie, Bridget. The Piping Tradition of the Inner Isles of the West Coast of Scotland. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012.

McCarthy, Kerry. Byrd. The Master Musicians Series. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

McCleave, Sarah Yuill. Dance in Handel’s London Operas. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2013.

Motherway, Susan H. The Globalization of Irish Traditional Song Performance. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013.

Powell, Neil. Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music. New York: Henry Holt, 2013.

Scores

MacMillan, James. Violin Concerto (2009). Violin-Piano Score arranged by Stephen Gibson. London: Boosey, 2013.

Dear NABMSA members,

At our business meeting at AMS in November 2013, I proposed and the board agreed that we should move much of the content previously published in the NABMSA Newsletter to a blog format. The biggest reason behind this shift is so that NABMSA can post news and other information with expiration dates–like calls for papers, job listings, etc.–in a more time-sensitive manner. NABMSA news, letters from the President and other officers, calls for papers, and other announcements will now show up here, so please add this site to your RSS feed manager or check back often.

Michelle Meinhart is the blog editor-in-chief, and there is a new blog committee, whose members will be posted over at the Officers page. If you have an item you think would be of interest to NABMSA members, please contact Michelle directly for it to be evaluated for posting.

Book reviews–an important part of the Newsletter–will be published separately as NABMSA Reviews, which will post twice a year as PDFs on the NABMSA site. If you’re interested in reviewing books or have a book you’d like reviewed in NABMSA Reviews, please contact Christina Bashford, the Reviews Editor.

I hope these changes will make keeping up with NABMSA easier for you, and I encourage everyone to submit news items, CFPs, and other materials of interest to our community to the blog for publication.

Best, Kendra Leonard

NABMSA announces the creation of the Byron Adams Student Travel Grants. The prize is named in honor of the scholar, author, and composer Byron Adams, who, in addition to his broad-based and groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of music in Britain since the late nineteenth century, has long been a mentor to numerous members of NABMSA and the musicological profession as a whole.

The purpose of the Byron Adams Student Travel Grants is to make NABMSA’s biennial conference accessible to as many students as possible. NABMSA is currently raising funds to endow the grants. When the endowment reaches $10,000, NABMSA will award grants to one or more doctoral-level students who deliver papers at its next conference. The grants, which will not exceed $500 per individual and $1,500 per conference cycle, will offset travel, lodging, and registration expenses. Grants will be awarded on the basis of financial need, the quality of the student’s paper abstract, and the strength of the recommendation letter received from a faculty advisor.

NABMSA is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2013 Diana McVeagh prize is Victory through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II, by Christina Baade, published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Baade is Associate Professor in Music and Communication Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Her research interests include early twentieth-century popular music; radio studies and the British Broadcasting Corporation; gender, queer, and critical race theory; and the historical interactions of mass media and music.

In their report, the selection committee described Dr. Baade’s work as “an impressive examination of how the BBC engaged with popular music during World War II in an attempt to encourage morale,” and wrote the following commendation: “Victory through Harmony exemplifies interdisciplinary research and writing. Not only does Baade write a book about popular music in Britain during WWII, she also balances her investigation with other facets at issue during those years, including a cultural study of the radio, the intertwining of nation-state and cultural ideals, and social transformation. The writing is never too technical to appeal to non-musicians, and the widespread appeal of this work will surely enable its use across disciplines. In addition to these outstanding qualities, Victory through Harmony is simply well written. Baade’s prose compels the reader in much the same way that the music she examines captured the ears of those who heard it.”

In addition to awarding the prize to Dr. Baade’s book, the committee singled out Harrison Birtwistle’s Operas and Music Theatre by David Beard, published by Cambridge University Press, for honorable mention.

NABMSA awards the Diana McVeagh Prize biennially to the best book on British Music. The prize is named in honor of pioneering British music writer, Diana McVeagh, who is the author of books on and musical editions of British composers Edward Elgar and Gerald Finzi, among others.

Congratulations to Prof. Baade and Oxford University Press!

The North American British Music Studies Association will hold its Sixth Biennial Conference from Thursday through Sunday, 31 July to 3 August 2014, in Las Vegas, Nevada, hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Proposals on topics related to all aspects of British music and musical life in general throughout Britain, the Empire, and beyond are welcome. Those that draw upon interdisciplinary or broader cultural contexts are particularly welcome.

See the 2014 conference page for more information.