‘Music, Media and Global Messages’
York St John University and the IMS Studygroup MaM (Music and Media) unites scholars, students and practitioners to share knowledge on the interaction between music and media.
Mon, 9 Jun 2025 09:00 – Tue, 10 Jun 2025 17:00 BST
Come to York, which is both the birthplace of the versatile composer, John Barry (1933-2011), and a UNESCO City of Media Arts, which houses many media companies, including VFX companies, film companies, art magazine and more. Take the opportunity to explore place and space within a rich historical city, hosted in person by the York St John University’s School of the Arts, that supports diverse approaches to music and media in their broadest senses.
Be inspired by Barry, who was a pluralistic composer writing for animation, TV and film, as well as collaborating with popular musicians. He wrote music for westerns, spy thrillers, romance, historical epics, sci-fi, biopics and more, presenting a wider range of cultural through music. Crossing genre borders, Barry demonstrates the reach and breadth of media and music, and the interpolation of the arts in creating stories, narratives, and transcultural engagement, emotional interaction and presentation, raising questions of place, space, cultural appropriation, access, and interpretation, and more.
Bringing together colleagues across disciplines, scholars, students, as well as practitioners, this conference aspires to share knowledge, research and practice, which shows similar versatility to that inspired by Barry. In his work, he represented a diverse range of genres, places, spaces, eras, cultures, and more. For this joint conference of York St John University and the Study Group Music and Media (MaM) under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, we particularly welcome individual papers (20 minutes; 10 minutes Q&A), themed panels (or 3 or 4 papers), and screenings, which relate to the following themes:
Event themes:
1. Translation: how are these art forms and works translated into new cultures, what is the role of subtitles or dubbing, and how can these art forms we accessible to all? Papers might problematise how a story (the target text) responds to the original narrative (the source text). How language is central to music and media communicating, how creative artists work in collaboration, and how the final work is received.
2. Music and Affect: what is the emotional impact of combining music and media; how do these art forms manipulate the spectator; how do these art forms come together to create a particular experience?
3. Genre: there is a wide-ranging breadth of genres within film, TV, animation and so on. Genres even merge to create new genres and approaches, not least a Western approach for a sci-fi battle. How have genres developed with new technologies and/or approaches.
4. Global Contexts: how might we read films which appropriate other cultures, and how might we consider the representation of global themes within specific genres?
5. John Barry: reassessing his contribution to music and media collaborations, reassessments, and critical reflections of his contribution.
Steering Committee:
Co-Chair, Prof. Helen Julia Minors (York St John University)
Co-Chair, MaM: Prof. Emile Wennekes (Utrecht University)
Prof. Steve Rawle (York St John University)
Dr. Sarah-Jane Gibson (York St John University)
Dr. Emilio Audissino (Linnaeus University)
Outline programme (subject to change)
9 June: Day 1
9:00: Arrival & welcome
9.15 – 10.45: Panel 1 – ‘Global contexts 1’
José Pinto (NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal), Music that does not laugh alone: music and humor in the films of João César Monteiro.
Marcell Bárdos (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), Music of the Spheres and Civilizational Melancholy in Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Last and First Men.
James Dennis Bunch Jr (KM College of Music and Technology, Chennai, India), Decolonizing Orchestration: The Tamizh Folk and Film Project.
10.45 – 11.15: Morning coffee break
11.15 – 12:45: Panel 2 – ‘Accessibility’
Yutong Lin (Università della Svizzera italiana/University of Lugano, Switzerland), Youth Engagement with Opera: Key Challenges.
Ângela Flores Baltazar (NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal), Broadcasting the classics: Television, Discourse, and the Democratization of Classical Music in the 1970’s.
Angela Tiziana Tarantini (Utrecht University, The Netherlands), Music for the Eyes:
Strategies by Sign Language Interpreter-Performers to Translate Songs into Sign Language.
12.45 – 14.00: Networking lunch + opportunity to view YSJ student’s Art & Design degree show.
14.00 – 15.30: Panel 3 – ‘Translations’
Philip Todd (Independent Scholar), Hush/The Sounds Of The Beasts : Continuum and a continuum in Jane Arden’s The Other Side Of The Underneath (1972).
Rebekah Pritchard (Edge Hill University, UK), Adapting the Monster: translating a South Korean musical for an English production.
Angela Tiziana Tarantini (Utrecht University, The Natherlands) & Helen Julia Minors (York St John University, UK), Text and Paratext in Sign-language-interpreted Music: A Multidisciplinary Perspective.
15.30 – 16.00: Afternoon coffee break
16.00 – 16.45: Discussion – ‘Music & Media publication opportunity, themes and issues’
16:45 – 17.30: Free time (meet the team for a refreshing beverage)
17.30 – 18.30: Musical concert: Musical Murder Mystery.
Get ready for a night of suspense, intrigue and music. Join together to unravel a thrilling murder mystery whilst enjoying live musical performances. Put on your detective hats and try to solve the mystery before the night is over. This event is directed by third-year music students; Ellie Sunderland, Kacie-Jae Purcell and Shannon Mahon, and performed by students from the YSJ School of Arts.
10 June: Day 2
9:15: Arrival
9.30 – 11.00: Panel 4 – ‘Affect’
Jose Miguel Arellano (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez | Universidad de los Andes, Chile), Plato, Music, and the Emotional Power of Media: A Philosophical Perspective on Affective Manipulation.
Charles-Pierre Vallière (AE 1572 Musidanse Paris 8 University, France), Film Music Rhythmic Patterns: A Preliminary Step in Transforming Viewer Affects.
Rebecca C Erickson (Independent Scholar, Texas), Vocalic Obliteration, Effacing Affect on the Film Musical SoundtrackJosé Pinto (NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal), Music that does not laugh alone: music and humor in the films of João César Monteiro.
11.00 – 11.30: Morning coffee break
11.30 – 13:00: Panel 5 – ‘Genre’
Hatice Çağlar (Independent Scholar, Turkey), Cultural Appropriation and Global Themes in Cinema: A Genre-Based Analysis.
David Ireland (University of Leeds, UK), “I can’t understand music that you have to […] struggle to listen to”: the ethical, representational, and affective functions of the soundtracks to historical films as illustrated by the music of ‘Worth’.
Will Jeffrey (The University of Sydney, Australia), Reassessing John Barry’s Score for Walkabout (Roeg, 1971): Cultural Landscapes, Nostalgia, and Indigenous Australian Representation.
13.00 – 14.00: Networking lunch + opportunity to view YSJ student’s Art & Design degree show.
14.00 – 15.30: Panel 6 – ‘Global contaxts 2’
Rosa Chalkho Rozenblum (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), Global Narratives and International Scores: The Musical Turn of Argentine Classical Cinema in the 1940s.
Satomi Sugiyama & Nello Barile (Franklin University Switzerland), Japanese City Pop and Automated Nostalgia.
Awakhiwe Ncube (University of Johannesburg, South Africa), Music and Media: The Emotional Power of Social Media on music consumption in South Africa.
15.30 – 16.00: Afternoon coffee break16.00 – 17.00: Plenary session.
IMS MAM Studygroup 