A discussion and announcement platform for music researchers sponsored by the Musicological Society of Australia

Ann Curthoys on Paul Robeson (Sydney Conservatorium Musicology Colloquium)

1 voice, 0 replies
Viewing 0 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
    • 22 October 2023 at 10:09 pm EDT #74259

      Rachel Marian Campbell
      Participant
      @rmcampbe

      The distinguished historian Ann Curthoys will present the final Musicology colloquium for 2023.

      “Speaking songs”: Paul Robeson on speech, song, music, politics, and universal humanity while touring Australia in 1960.

      In the 1930s and 1940s Paul Robeson was probably the most famous African American in the world, known for his singing, his stage role as Othello, his movie roles, and from around 1937 his radical politics. In the 1950s, his support for the Soviet Union and his pro-communist politics led the US to deny him concert venues and remove his passport, so that he almost disappeared from public view. In 1958, his passport finally restored, he began touring and singing again. His last tour at the age of 62 was to Australia and New Zealand in October – December 1960. There are many aspects to the tour, which was both a commercial success and a matter of great excitement to those on the left of politics. Here I will discuss the tour, with a particular focus on his frequent comments concerning the relationship between politics and music, speech and song, as well as his theory of folk music and the pentatonic scale. I am especially interested in the Australian responses to him, his musical and political ideas, and his voice.   Ann Curthoys is an honorary professor at the University of Sydney and Professor Emerita at ANU.

      Wednesday 1 November, 4pm AEDT

      On zoom only

      Meeting ID: 818 7953 7217

      https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/81879537217

      Password: MCS

      All welcome. 

      Kind regards,

      Rachel (on behalf of the MCS committee: Chris Coady, David Larkin and Rachel Campbell)

      DR RACHEL CAMPBELL | Lecturer in Musicology

      Sydney Conservatorium of Music

      THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

      Rm 2078, Building C41 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006

      E  rachel.campbell@sydney.edu.au | W  sydney.edu.au/music |

      Gadigal Land of the Eora nation

      Recent work:

      ‘Primitivism and Settler Primitivism in Music: The Case of John Antill’s Corroboree’, Musical Quarterly 105, no.1-2 (2022), 190–234.

      ‘Primitive, Exotic, and Australian: The Reception of John Antill’s Corroboree’, Journal of Musicology 39, no.4 (2022), 405–431.

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 0 reply threads
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.