Society for American Music Annual Meeting 2010, Day 1

Yes, I got in last night, and yes, the first thing that I did was have Poutine. I intend to have it for the next several days.

Amusicology is running on a skeleton crew at this SAM, on account of the fact that Ryan recently became a dad. Congrats Ryan! So it is just me.

I spent the morning getting caught up and prepping for my afternoon paper, which was in the novel “seminar” format that SAM was experimenting with this year. The idea was to pre-circulate longer papers (mine was just shy of thirty, which was, give or take, the length of the contributions by my co-panelists Leta Miller, Rebecca Marchand, Kate Brucher, and Michael Mauskapf). The seminar was dedicated to the memory of Catherine Parsons Smith, who passed away last year and co-authored the paper that Prof. Miller presented. Then participants, and audience members, would all get together and discuss them over the course of two hours.

The panel was proposed and chaired by Mark Clague, of U-Michigan renown, and was on “The Art of Association.” Another seminar, 19th-century Music studies, was running concurrently. I would estimate that we had between 40 and 50 people there, and a lively discussion ensued. The format was new, and definitely a different kind of experience than I had been used to; I’ll be interested to chat with the other participants to see how they thought it contrasted with the traditional 20-minute paper & 10 minute Q & A.

I then went to William Bare’s superb talk on Norwegian Jazz, which is  a continuation of his inquiry in to trends in transatlantic jazz. Great stuff, and was remarkable for being a talk in which I wanted to go out and by all of the albums that he played clips from. Learning is fun!

In other news, runners of the world take note: If you are jogging along the Rideau Canal according to the map provided by  the Westin, the sidewalk is closed at Bank St on the near side of the canal. So don’t get confused, just cross the street and then you can get across the bridge and loop back. AND everyone here is so friendly that they say hi to you when you pass them while jogging. How awesome is Ottawa? Pretty awesome.

Check back tomorrow for another update. You can also follow us on twitter. Come to the no-host reception Phil and I are organizing. That is all.