Date: 3:30-4:45 PM, Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Location: Music Room 1145

From the standpoint of music studies, the relationship between voice and air is one of figure to ground or event to medium. In comparison to the voice, in other words, the air appears inert, transparent, and theoretically uninteresting. However, in our current era of global warming, airborne particulates, and rising CO2 emissions, air has become front-page news. What insights can we gain from turning the tables on the voice and taking air seriously? This talk brings music studies into conversation with recent writings on climate change to form a new framework for understanding singing and other vocal emissions in the anthropocene. 

J. Martin Daughtry is an associate professor of ethnomusicology at New York University. He teaches and writes on sound studies; acoustic violence; voice; listening; jazz in New York; air; Russian-language sung poetry; and the auditory imagination. 

This event it sponsored by the Department of Film and Media Studies, the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music (CISM), and the Department of Music.