Music and the Melodramatic Aesthetic Call for Papers Conference, University of Nottingham (5-7 September 2008) The early nineteenth-century stage genre of melodrama, as exemplified by Pixérécourt's mélodrames à grand spectacle, expressed the moral struggle between good and evil through the interrelationship of music, speech, gesture and tableau in scenes of high emotion. This cross-disciplinary conference (Music, Theatre, Film, Art History, Philosophy) is the culmination of an AHRC-funded Research Workshop exploring melodrama as a performance process and an aesthetic, and tracing the nature of its influence on later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century drama - including opera, ballet, pantomime and early sound and film recordings. The keynote speaker will be Prof Jacqueline Waeber (Duke University). Individual papers and session proposals are invited on (though not restricted to) the following topics: The gestural language of melodrama opera, ballet, silent film Performance materials (including treatises, manuals, images, recordings) Gestural and musical clichés The high/low divide The communication process between actors/singers and audience Ethics and aesthetics The evolution of melodrama through the nineteenth century Tableaux Static/kinetic moments Gesture and movement in music Performative processes Excess Sonic/visual spectacle Body-voice-orchestra as locus of meaning Sound vs. image Cultural transfer Please send proposals for 20-minute papers (max. 300 words) and/or 90- minute panel sessions to the conference organiser mailto:[log in to unmask] by 31 May 2008. Please include your institutional details and email address. We aim to notify applicants within three weeks of this deadline. It is envisaged that a selection of papers will be published. For more information please visit the project website: www.nottingham.ac.uk/music/mma This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses, which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]