Dear Sasrim member,
The annual Sasrim Conference will be held from 18-20 July and for the first time it will be hosted by Fort Hare University at their new East-London Campus. This year we are excited to have two renowned international scholars as keynote speakers: Prof Susan McClary and Prof Robert Walser, both from Case University in Cleveland in the USA. Prof McClary’s paper ‘From the Universal and Timeless to the Here and Now: Rethinking Music Studies’ will discuss current concerns regarding curricula at tertiary institutions. Prof Walser will speak on the diversity of musical taste and its relation to the classical canon in his paper ‘Why Are There So Many Songs?’. We look forward to welcoming both these distinguished guests.
Apart from the keynote addresses, this year’s conference program will include approximately 50 papers, round table discussions and other presentations, covering a wide variety of sub-disciplines within our field. These include presentations on African music, theatre studies, music education, gender studies, popular music & jazz studies, boeremusiek, censorship, the classical canon, music archiving as well as new music composition. The conference will also have a special session on applied ethnomusicology where delegates will have the opportunity to build their own bows and learn how to play them. The afterhours program for the conference will include concerts by music groups from Ngqoko and Mkonjana and the UFH Music Department’s marimba ensemble, Ntsikana. There will furthermore be a piano recital with Mariel Ilusorio and the screening of a documentary film by Aryan Kaganof on the Eoan Group titled An Inconsolable Memory.
The organizing team at the University of Fort Hare is headed by Prof Bernhard Bleibinger. You will be able to find all practical information regarding the conference on the following website address: http://sasrim2013.wordpress.com/. The website will soon also have the registration form, information on guest houses and how to get to the campus. A preliminary program will be distributed to you shortly.
SAMUS
SAMUS Volume 32 has been published in March and will be posted to you in the course of this month. The issue includes contributions by Jeff Brukman, Kevin Davidson, Nicol Hammond, Mareli Stolp, Chris Ballentine, Jay Schutte and Salim Washington as well as a book review by Yemurai Matibe and covers topics ranging from music composition to jazz to popular music and discussions on the discipline of musicology. SAMUS 33 (for 2013) and 34 (for 2014) are both planned as themed issues with guest editors. Volume 33 will edited by Jeff Brukman and Ingrid Monson and will be a Jazz issue. Volume 34, dedicated to Andrew Tracey, will be edited by Kathryn Olsen.
The publications committee under the leadership of Willemien Froneman has recently spent much time on efforts to increase SAMUS’s footprint with wider distribution of articles via the web as well as increased international accreditation. Contracts have been set up, or maintained, with various local and international agents such as Gale, Rilm, Ebsco Proquest, Cencage and Sabinet. However, the results in terms of financial or other gains for the society will take time to materialize and we see this as long term investment. Academic accreditation with for instance ISI is also planned, but this too is a long term project.
Another concern of the Exco has been the administrative support network for SAMUS. Since Volume 24, editors have changed more rapidly and it has become evident that with the coming and going of editors, necessary as this may be, the administration of the journal tends to get disrupted. This has had a detrimental effect on the timeliness of publications. Regular publication is however essential should we want wider academic accreditation. In November 2012 Willemien and the undersigned attended a workshop hosted by African Journals Online where we had the opportunity to conceptualize the basic administrative structures needed in order for SAMUS to be published regularly regardless of changing editors. Willemien is currently working on a system that will facilitate this and we hope to implement this within the next year. Such a system will also ease the already difficult and time consuming task of the editor.
The editorship for SAMUS from Volume 35 onwards was advertised at the end of 2012. An application has been received from Willemien Froneman and Stephanus Muller for a joint editorship for the period 2015-2017. The Exco has accepted their application and I would herewith like to congratulate them on their appointment!
Membership fees
The fee structure for 2013 remains the same as last year. Our treasurer, Claudia Jansen van Rensburg, will soon send out reminders and overviews of fees payable. The fee structure looks as follows:
Ordinary member: ZAR250 Overseas member
Library subscriptions: ZAR350
Student member/pensioner: ZAR125 (Students to provide proof of registration)
All the best for your academic endeavours of the rest of this year and looking forward to seeing you at the conference!
Regards,
Hilde Roos (Sasrim Chair)