SAM Report, Part 2

God bless the Ottawa airport for having free wifi, is the first thing I want to say. It makes this bleary, dreary, out-of-bed-at-6am Sunday somewhat more bearable.

First of all, congratulations to fellow former UCLAers Jonathan Greenberg and Chuck Garrett for winning, respectively, the dissertation and book prizes. What was that phrase about "narcissism, waste, and entitlement"? Chuck's work is of course well-known, but having read a number of Jonathan's chapters back in the day, I hope this brings his work to broader attention. If you work on mid-century popular music, or want to imagine the possibilities of analyzing the material quality of sound in any genre, his dissertation is a must-read.

A real highlight of this conference for me was the Friday afternoon "soundwalk" with R. Murray Schafer. Murray was this year's recepient of SAM's Honorary Membership, which included a large concert Friday night that I was unable to attend. But almost more special, in some ways, was the chance for a smallish group of us to walk around the streets of Ottawa, with Murray leading us through a series of listening exercises. It gave me lots of food for thought, especially his argument that we ought to teach that kind of aural ear training along with ear training of the more traditional sort. Watch out, my students, there might be a blindfolded tour of Colonial Williamsburg in your future.

A number of other good papers since last we spoke. I saw Emily Abrams Ansari talk about Ulysees Kay's government-sponsored tour of the Soviet Union in 1958, and Elizabeth Craft take apart the marketing campaign that enable In the Heights to appeal to normative Broadway audiences while simultaneously broadening and diversifying that audience. Then on to a panel looking at the origins of the American Rome Prize, with Judith Tick doing a particularly fascinating job of looking at the establishment of that prize, and the American Academy in Rome more generally, within the context of classicism. I left the panel briefly to go see Jeff Wright, a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill, talk about Samuel Barber's obscure 1942 Funeral March. I particularly liked his paper not only unearthed and explained an obscure work, but also tried to think creatively about why it was received the way it was (poorly.) The march is essentially the official Air Force hymn "Into the Wild Blue Yonder" presented slowly, and in the minor mode. Jeff profitably compared it to the famous funeral march from Mahler's 1st, and more contemporarily to Stravinsky's arrangement of the "Star Spangled Banner."

Being that I am now on a plane to Philadelphia, I'm unfortunately missing the Sunday papers, which are especially rich this year: Sarah Gerk on Alice Cooper, Kevin Bartig on Koussevitzky, William Cheng's apparently-amazing work on video games, and Paul Cox talking about Cage and Cunningham's Credo in US. I did have dinner with Paul last night, and his research on Cage's early works seems very exciting; I hope I'll see it soon.

And that was SAM! Jim Deaville did an excellent job as local arrangments chair, and several beavertails and one late-night encounter with poutine later, I have to say Ottawa was a surprisingly pleasant town. Expensive, but pleasant.