The Bluegrass, Old Time & County Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University will be hosting the first of what they hope will be annual String Band Summit in April of 2022.
This is meant to be an academic conference, bringing together musicians, teachers, and scholars of all forms of string band music to discuss and learn from each other about the types of string band music played and preserved all over the world.
The initial Summit will be held April 8-10 next year at the University in Johnson City, TN. On behalf of the committee, Dr. Lee Bidgood has announced an extension of the original call to participation until next week, November 22, for presentations during the Summit.
He supplied the following information.
A selection committee will select proposals of three kinds:
1) Scholarly presentations of 20 minutes in length, to be followed by 10 minutes for questions and discussion. These presentations should highlight your research into the history, practice, personalities, and contexts of string band music. Your presentation should introduce attendees to the process and product of your research, providing new insights into our understandings of how the music has worked and/or is working today. Content presented should be relevant, innovative, and accessible.
2) Teaching presentations or workshops of 30 or 60 minutes in length, followed by 15 minutes for questions and discussion. Teaching presentations should immerse participants in the sorts of teaching environments that you create in your pedagogical work. Workshops should be participatory, and should teach participants about a particular style, technique, or practice. Content could include music history, music theory, business, sound technology, instrument maintenance, etc.
3) Organized panels/roundtables of 75 minutes. Organized panels should include 3-4 presenters and a moderator. Roundtables should primarily consist of discussion among attendees.
We invite participation from artists, performers, and practitioners, from luthiers, songwriters, and event promoters, as well as from scholars and teachers of ethnomusicology, musicology, music education, music theory, dance, art history, history, cultural studies, political science, anthropology, sociology, area studies, media studies, folklore, performance studies, and other relevant disciplines. Proposals from graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged. The committee will select presenters anonymously.
The inaugural String Ban Summit will also include performances and workshops put together by the Program Committee, consisting of faculty and scholars from a number of institutions. Members include Lee Bidgood, Gabriela Fuentes, Joseph Johnson, Richard Jones-Bamman, Ben Krakauer, Jordan Laney, Mark Miyake, Jocelyn Neal, Nate Olson, Ted Olson, Raquel Paraiso, Greg Reish, Laura Risk, and Joti Rockwell.
The committee has created a Google form to submit proposals online.
Anyone with questions about possible presentations that don’t precisely fit the suggestions above is invited to coctact Dr. Bidgood by email.
