CSI - ECI Cover Vol 14 Nos 2-3 Special Journal Double-Issue

“Volume II: Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic”

Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation—IICSI’s peer-reviewed, open-access journal—has released a special double issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation“Volume II: Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

This issue features musicians, performers, scholars, arts presenters, and other cultural workers reflecting on the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic and beginning to envisage a post-pandemic musical landscape. As issue editors Daniel Fischlin, Laura Risk, and Jesse Stewart write, “One year into the pandemic, with tropes of exhaustion vs. resilience circulating like viral contagions in their own right, the voices here suggest something else: the beginnings of a dream of liveness.” 

This issue features more than thirty scholarly articles, essays, reflections, testimonies, interviews, and creative offerings reflecting on the ongoing impact of the pandemic. In addition to the many community voicings included, the issue also contains six peer-reviewed articles:

  • Hadi Bastani, Anna Linardou, Rojin Sharafi, and Ioannis Tsioulakis: “Musical Careers in Constant Crises: An Asynchronous Dialogue from Tehran to Athens, via Belfast and Vienna”
  • Juan Calvi: “La escena de las músicas creativas improvisadas en Iberoamérica: de la música en vivo a la música online y al desierto pospandemia digital”
  • Monika Herzig: “What the World Needs Now is Jazz”
  • Jessie Cox and Sam Yulsman: “Listening through Webs for/of Creole Improvisation: Weaving Music II as a Case Study” 
  • Glen Whitehead: “‘Take it Outside, People!’: Bridging Ecoacoustics and Improvised Music” 
  • Kate Galloway and Rachael Fuller: “‘Unmute’ Bread: Listening, Improvising, and Performing with Sourdough in Quarantine” 

Every piece in this double issue offers unique perspectives from artists around the world, all living and improvising through an unprecedented historical moment. 

The decision to dedicate an ambitious, two-volume edition of the journal to the COVID-19 pandemic arose from editor Laura Risk. In her article “Come together, right now, over a livestream: The power of music during a pandemic,” published in The Globe and Mail in March 2020, Risk stated that “Community music will survive the pandemic.” As the testimonials in this journal issue attest, that statement has proven to be provisionally true.

 “Volume II: Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic” can be read now through the Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation website. More information about Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, which has published ground-breaking research on improvisation across academic disciplines since 2004, can also be found on the journal website.

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