ACADEMIC TALK
TALK, PLAY & THINK – ACADEMIC TALKS AND PERFORMANCE
SEMESTER 2, SESSION 2012/2013
MARCH 2013
Academic Talk
‘Music in Special Education-ADHD’
by: Chet-Yeng, Loong, PhD
13th March 2013, Choir Room Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, 2.30p.m – 4.00p.m
Session description: Participants will explore different ways to teach music to elementary and middle school students with disabilities, specifically students with ADHD. Topics such as music behaviors, teaching strategies/delivery skills, planning, and the sequencing of skills in an inclusive music classroom setting across various populations are included.
APRIL 2013
Academic Talk
’24 Jie Ling Gu (24 Festive Drums) to Hands Percussion: The Malaysian Chinese Modern Identity Performed in Music and Choreography’
by: Bernard Goh
24th April 2013, Recital Room Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, 2.30p.m – 4.00p.m
In 1988, the Chinese of Malaysia constructed the 24 Jie Ling Gu to represent their identity as a Chinese diaspora with strong attachments to a distant motherland. The music and choreography of the 24 Jie Ling Gu drew inspiration from the natural environment, festivals, and agricultural activities in China, imagined and romanticized by the Chinese in Malaysia. As the 24 Jie Ling Gu’s popularity spread throughout Malaysia, young Chinese boys and girls began to master the art of drumming and acquire knowledge of the history of their ancestral home in China. More than 20 years after its establishment, some of these drummers, growing up as third and fourth generation Malaysians, decided to form Hands Percussion to explore their contemporary identity as modern Malaysians. This lecture is about how Hands Percussion transforms their philosophy of life, inspiration, desires, and experiences as global and modern citizens into music and choreography.
MAY 2013
Academic Talk
Dance Film Sharing – Pina
by: Bilqis Hiijas
29th May 2013, Choir Room Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, 2.30p.m – 4.00p.m
This lecture introduces the audience to the work of Pina Bausch, the German choreographer who pioneered the development of Tanztheater which has since become influential across Europe and the world. Illustrated with segments from the film Pina, directed by WimWenders, this lecture will explore topics of narrative and non-narrative structures, cross-disciplinary tendencies in European contemporary dance, stage sets and sense of scale, and the structure of support for the performing arts in Germany. There will be a special focus on The Rite of Spring, one of Bausch’s most well-known works, and its relationship to Nijinsky’s Rite for the Ballets Russes in Paris, now celebrating its centenary, a shocking art work that ushered in the age of modernism in the performing arts.
JULY 2013
Academic Talk
Comparing Musicians and Athletes: The Application of Exercise Science Principles to Musical Performance and Training
by: Dr. Karen Lonsdale
10th July 2013, KM 4 Room, Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, 2.30p.m – 4.00p.m
Musicians have often been compared with athletes, yet their training and performance schedules can be vastly different. Additionally, the playing positioning of many instrumentalists tends to be fairly static, compared with the more dynamic activities of athletes. Performance-related injuries of both musicians and athletes have been widely reported in the literature. However, a notable difference between both groups is that athletes tend to prepare for the possibility of injury through specific training methods such as periodisation, rest and recovery, as well as flexibility and conditioning. This paper will examine some of the key similarities and differences between musicians and athletes, and highlight principles from Exercise Science which may assist in the prevention and management of musicians’ playing-related problems. Students and teachers will be shown how to incorporate injury prevention techniques into their rehearsal and practice situations.
OCTOBER 2013
Academic Talk
Zapin: Is It Dance, Music or Dhikr?
by: Professor Mohd Anis Md Nor
30th October 2013, KM 4 Room, Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, 2.30p.m – 4.00p.m
Since the advent of Islam in the 13th century, the Hadhrami Arab’s diaspora in Archipelagic Southeast Asia has left intelligible influence in the life of indigenous populace. Amongst them is in the shaping of Islamic da’wah, which literally means issuing or inviting people to the faith through the activities of a dā‘ī (religious worker) or du‘āt (a volunteer community effort); the propagation of Sufism or taṣawwuf, the inner mystical dimension of Islam; transmission of syncretic visual and performing arts: and political governance, commerce and literature. Often, these activities conflate eclectically to form new hybrids creating distinctive expressions that are succinctly Southeast Asian in forms and appearances. Zapin, for example had incorporated performative fusions of soundscape, body movements, gestures and sung texts presaging spiritual acuities sacrosanct to Sufistic traditions privileged to erudite practitioners. This paper attempts to illustrate the macro-meso-micro oscillations between the sacred and the profane interrogating the domains of dance, music and spiritual remembrance.
Keywords: Zapin, Hadhrami Arab, Islam, Performing Arts, Hybrid, Dance, Music
DECEMBER 2013
Academic Talk
Bringing to light Niccolò Paganini’s lesser-known chamber music for violin and guitar
by: Veselin Kolev & Violetta Ayderova
18th December 2013, Choir Room, Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, 2.30p.m – 4.00p.m
Niccolò Paganini, one of the greatest virtuosos of the violin, changed and paved new techniques in violin sound and training. He was born in 1782 in Genoa, Italy and called “the devil’s spawn” due to his demonic performance, countless trips and concerts, women and wastefulness.
The presentation will focus on an in-depth reading and analysis of the composer Paganini and especially his chamber music compositions, which are poorly understood.
Paganini took up the guitar and wrote music for it during the duration of a romance with one of his many lovers, who liked the instrument. The guitar in Paganini’s chamber music and especially in his major works such as “Sonata Concertata” was not only a harmonic instrument that is filled gaps in the harmonic sequence, it was also a solo instrument along with the violin that is creating contrast and dialogue between the two instruments. He created more than seventy duets for violin and guitar (i.e. MS2, MS3, MS 109, Grand Sonata, Gantabile) and wrote over hundred of scores for solo guitar. Paganini was famous for developing and extending many violin techniques which are now are basic techniques for violin teaching and training such as – Scordatura- the diverse tuning of strings, double, triple and quadruple stops, ricochet bowing, complicated harmonics and double stop harmonics, just to name a few.
For many decades, the large number of scores were not available for performances and Paganini’s chamber music was neglected, which this paper seeks to address.