Classical Music in Contemporary Media and Society - International Online-Conference

The place and relevance of classical music in a world marked by ongoing cultural diversification, commercialization and mediatization is a subject that has received considerable attention in recent years. The topic has been a recurring theme in both the scholarly literature and in broader public discourses. During the last decade, discourses on classical music have also become progressively more visible in public space and in mainstream popular culture. While such discourses have certainly had a long-standing presence in public media – cinema, newspapers, radio broadcast, telecasts, etc. – they have lately been increasingly disseminated through diverse visual and audio-visual representations related to newly emerging advertising strategies of concert institutions, record companies and streaming sites, as well as to on-line social media and widely popular TV-series and fiction films. Thus, a vigorous negotiation is taking place in a variety of contemporary locations and media. At stake here is not only the cultural status and significance of classical music but, more radically, the very idea of what classical music is. This situation calls for research that addresses the broader meaning-making processes surrounding and shaping our conceptions of classical music and classical musicians today.

The main objective of the conference Classical Music in Contemporary Media and Society is to promote such research and encourage a genuinely interdisciplinary discussion about classical music as a contemporary cultural and mediatized phenomenon.

Keynote speaker

Professor Lawrence Kramer (Fordham University)

Program committee

Tobias Pontara (University of Gothenburg)
Inka-Maria Nyman (Åbo Akademi University)
Christina Scharff (Kings College, London)
Michael Baumgartner (Cleveland State University)
Adrian Curtin (University of Exeter).

Organization

The conference Classical Music in Contemporary Media and Society is organized by the Department of Cultural Sciences (University of Gothenburg) in collaboration with the research project Classical Music for a Mediatized World: Visual and Audio-Visual Representations of Western Art Music in Contemporary Media and Society.

The conference is co-funded by the Swedish Research Council.