The Music Matters at University of Groningen Performance and Lecture Series is proud to present Dr. Raymond Macdonald (University of Edinburgh), who will give the 35th Music Matters talk entitled “We Are All Improvisers: The Psychological Foundations of Musicality.” This talk takes place at the Heymanszaal in the RUG Academy Building from 17:00 until 18:30 on December 8th, 2022.

This presentation discusses the importance of improvisation as a defining feature of social and creative interactions. It outlines the relationship of community music, music therapy and music education by focusing upon what it means to be musical and how music plays a crucial role in defining who we are as individuals and socially. The role of music in health and wellbeing will be emphasized as will the topic of how improvisation can be utilized to help explore creativity and collaborations in multiple contexts from virtuoso performances to children’s first experiences of music. A new definition of virtuosity will be proposed which includes a broader range of musical skills than is conventionally accepted. The lecture will include some short practical demonstrations to highlight the key points.

The Music Matters at University of Groningen Performance is proud to present Dr. Mimi Haddon (University of Sussex) who will give a talk entitled “Telling Alternative Stories: Women’s Knowledge Cultures of Music.” This talk takes place at the USVA Theatre (Munnekeholm 10) from 09:15 until 10:00. All are welcome to attend. Read an abstract of Dr. Haddon’s project below:

“This paper brings together two recent projects that share a broad aim. The first is an idea that emerged when writing my article on Joan Baez’s imitations of Bob Dylan, which was published in 2021 in the journal Twentieth-Century Music. By analysing mimicry, this article sought to challenge the assumption that true musical knowledge is best demonstrated by writing original songs. Drawing from academic interrogations of musical creativity and identity as well as the work of Leopoldina Fortunati, I offered the idea of the creative matrix and looked to recentre the listening subject as a way to engage matrilineal lineages in music and the underexplored musical ‘work’ of listening and intimacy.
This process of focusing on listening and decentring traditional notions of knowledge and creativity in music led me to a second project, which is the AHRC-funded network, Music for Girls. In collaboration with twelve women from the local East Sussex community and  two affiliates of the Museum of Ordinary People, we curated an exhibition of women’s music tastes and local women’s music stories, which opened for four days in September this year. The local participants ranged in age from 15 to 72 and, crucially, their level of music ‘expertise’ varied too — from professional musicians to lay people.
The aim in these two projects is this: By looking to the position of listener, to perceived non-expert knowledges, and feminist archives, can we develop new paradigms for the analysis and even teaching of popular music that go beyond fan studies and traditional paradigms? What emerges—at the level of sonic properties and music historiographies specifically—if we experiment with suspending what we think we ‘know’ about popular music cultures and engage instead with knowledge cultures as linked to femininity?”

The Music Matters at University of Groningen Performance and Lecture series is proud to present a two day symposium on queer futurities, starting with a karaoke queer music history lecture at Dorothy’s drag bar on November 16th. On November 17th we continue in the academy building of the University of Groningen with a panel discussion on Janelle Monae and Queer Afrofuturisms in music with Dr. Dan Hassler-Forrest (Utrecht University) and Dr. Magdalena Fürnkranz (University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna). All are welcome to attend.

The Music Matters at University of Groningen Performance and Lecture series in partnership with IASPM Benelux’s Pop Talks series is proud to present Dr. Charles Kronengold (Stanford University) who will give a talk entitled “Genres of the 1970s: Big Archives, Close Readings, Medium Sized-Theories” that will discuss the content of his recently released book Living Genres in Late Modernity (University of California Press). All are welcome to attend. Register via email to c.j.tonelli@rug.nl.

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media invites you to the first Music Matters event of  the 2022/2023 Lecture Series. For this special discussion in collaboration with VERA Groningen we invite Russian group Shortparis. This event takes place on Thursday 22 September from 15:00 to 16:00 in VERA Groningen (Oosterstraat 44, 9711NV Groningen), ahead of the group’s performance at the venue that evening.
For information regarding the concert, visit this link.

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media invites you to the fourth Music Matters event of  the 2021/2022 Lecture Series. For this special talk we invite Canadian post-punk group Crack Cloud for a discussion on music collectives and community activism. This event takes place on Saturday May 7, from 15:00 to 16:00 in VERA Groningen (Oosterstraat 44, 9711NV Groningen), ahead of the group’s performance at the venue that evening.
For information regarding the concert, visit this link.

Please note: this lecture will occur both online via Google Meets and in-person in RUG Harmony Building, room 1314.026. Use this link to join the digital meeting. Those entering the Google Meets session from University of Groningen accounts need not register in advance – all others should register via this link.

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media invites you to the fifth Music Matters event of  the 2021/2022 Lecture Series. For this talk we invite dr. Simone Driessen. This event takes place on May 11th, from 16:00 to 17:30. 

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Please note: this lecture will occur online via Blue Jeans Network. Use this link to join. All are free to join, no registration is required in advance!

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media invites you to a collaborative event by the music and theater departments for a special Spot On! & Music Matters lecture. For this talk (Friday December 10th 2021, 13:00-15:00) we invite the newly appointed Special Professor of Musical Theatre at the University of Amsterdam (Joop van den Ende Chair): dr. Millie Taylor.

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Please note: this lecture will occur online via Google Meets. Use this link to join. Those entering from University of Groningen accounts need not register. All others should register in advance via Google Forms via this link.

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media invites you to the third Music Matters event of  the 2021/2022 Lecture Series. For this talk we invite Elizaveta Gaufman and Anatoly Reshetnikov. This event takes place on December 9, from 16:00 to 17:30. 

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Please note: this lecture will occur online via Google Meets. Use this link to join. Those entering from University of Groningen accounts need not register. All others should register in advance via Google Forms via this link.

The Department of Arts, Culture and Media invites you to the third Music Matters event of  the 2021/2022 Lecture Series. For this talk we invite composer, sound artist and sound researcher Cathy van Eck. This event takes place on November 25, from 16:00 to 17:30. 

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