As part of Société de musique contemporaine du Québec‘s Homage Series to Sandeep Bhagwati (Concert Season 2023-24), Concordia University is organizing the conference, “La musique à l’ère des défis: temporalités plurielles-mondiales / Music in Difficult Times: Global—Plural Temporalities.”

I will be giving the keynote lecture-performance on May 3 (Friday) at 5pm. Please say hi if you are around.

About the Conference:

Can music engage transformative action in times of crisis?
”May you live in interesting times!” — Apocryphal Chinese Curse

Fires burn around the world. Systemic inequities persist. From pandemics and climate change to military conflicts and authoritarian governments, the world is living in what composer and researcher Sandeep Bhagwati cheekily calls “interesting times.” These times call for resistance, organizing, and creativity. How has musical practice responded to moments of upheaval in historical times? What forms of transformative action does it engender? Since a crisis is always a turning point (krisis), it demands a time for thinking, a critical decision (krinein) that takes account of the present to imagine possible futures and rethink collective action within global music communities.

Inspired by Bhagwati’s wide-ranging, trans-traditional, and interdisciplinary orientations, this colloquium brings together researchers, musicians, and composers to reflect on the role of musical performance—and wider practices of listening—in facing global challenges. Drawing on Global South, posthuman, queer, decolonial, and diasporic perspectives, we will consider time and temporality, precarity, protest, resistance, resurgence, community, healing, transformation, and the futures of new and experimental music in times of ecological and sociopolitical crisis. All these topics and more will be addressed over three days, alongside original musical performances.

For more info and registration, please visit the program website.