Sound, Meaning, Education 2023: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations conference begins next Friday 20 October at 9:30AM in MacKinnon. All University of Guelph students and faculty are warmly invited and encouraged to attend. All events are free. SME 2023 Schedule of Events. Registration required.

SME Conference Initiative

This three-day conference will convene international and multi-generational scholars, musicians/artists, teachers and students from typically under-represented groups to mobilize research addressing curricular innovation in music and arts education across a variety of diverse cultural contexts, and to advance the development of cross-disciplinary research networks and initiatives. Specifically, the conference (35 presenters, performers and workshop facilitators) will share innovative curricular ideas and facilitate conversations and improvisations centered around the phenomena of sound and sensuous ways of knowing and being in the world — encounters and expressions often hidden by dominant ontologies and epistemologies of western/white colonization, neoliberal agendas, and capitalistic tendencies towards quantifiable, standardized and data-driven teaching and learning.

The conference will be held in parallel with Canada’s International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) fourth annual 24-hour Improvisation Festival (IF) — an international curated event celebrating improvised arts across disciplines highlighting such spaces as resonant sites of activism, equity, environmental stewardship, and community building.

The ‘sensory’ turn, as represented in sound studies and sensuous scholarship methodologies, is opening ways to better understand and address societal inequities and injustices across race, gender, socio-economic class, and climate change to cite a few. This turn, however, is slow in affecting fields such as music and arts education, which is generally steeped and set in its’ “traditional values” tone. An aim of this conference is to draw together an international team of scholars, artists and actively exploring such methodologies in their research and artistic practice and invite local school teachers to participate in workshops demonstrating innovative techniques they may integrate into their daily teaching.

Another aim is to advance the development and dissemination of research collaborations and networks amongst the international symposium presenters by publishing a special issue in Canada’s, Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation featuring symposium material. This open-access journal will offer continued fuel for conversation and work towards a more sustainable and resonant future of arts education in Canada and internationally.

Please feel free to reach out to jashen edwards ([email protected]) should you have any questions! Looking forward to seeing you all there!

SME 2023 is funded through the generous support of: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) | The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) | College of Arts, University of Guelph | Northern Arizona University