We are pleased to solicit proposals for the inaugural Cascade Song Festival, a weekend devoted to the study and performance of song. The organizers are music theorist Stephen Rodgers (University of Oregon) and musicologist Stephen Rumph (University of Washington), along with sopranos Camille Ortiz (University of Oregon) and Carrie Shaw (University of Washington). The festival will take place at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, on January 24–26, 2025. Events will include a recital by the internationally acclaimed performers Nicholas Phan (tenor) and Myra Huang (pianist), a master class by Phan, and a keynote presentation by musicologist Natasha Loges (Hochschule für Musik Freiburg), as well as performances by UO and UW faculty and students.
We invite submissions on all aspects of song, with a special welcome to literary scholars, composers, and performer-scholars. The festival seeks to foster creative interactions between performance and scholarship, and we welcome both traditional papers and lecture demonstrations. All presenters will be allotted 20 minutes, with 10 minutes for questions.
Topics may (but need not) include:
the interaction of song analysis and performance
collaborations between performers and scholars of song
underexplored song repertoires
the semiotics of song
novel ways of understanding the relationship between text and music
interdisciplinary work that combines musicological, literary, and performance-based perspectives
poetic misreadings
constructions of gender and social identity in song and song performance
Please send an abstract of your presentation (maximum 350 words), without your name, to cascadesongfestival@gmail.com. In the email, include your name, affiliation or location, and a brief sketch of work in song research and/or performance. Abstracts are due July 1, 2024.