Co-organized by Sarah Kay, NYU, and François Noudelmann, Université Paris VIII
This conference brings together scholars of French literature, music, and history, alongside sound artists from France and the Francophone world, to explore the place of sound in sensation/making sense. Talks and roundtables are organized around a series of performances which include a concert featuring compositions of Michaël Levinas, a performance at the Park Avenue Armory of Boulez’s Répons by IRCAM’s Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the innovative production by Roland Auzet of Bertrand-Marie Koltes’s play In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields. Levinas; the director of l’IRCAM, Frank Madlener; and Auzet will participate in discussions around their work.
Thursday, October 5
Location: La Maison Française
2:00 p.m. Welcome and opening remarks
2:15 - 4:15 p.m. Opening keynotes
Singing with the Stars, Sarah Kay, NYU
The Acousmatic Turn, François Noudelmann, Université Paris VIII
4:30 - 6:30 p.m. Roundtable 1: Political and Social Soundscapes
Sounds in the Street: Vendors’ Cries and the Ringing of Church Bells, Evelyn (Timmie) Birge Vitz, NYU
Some Reflections from the Interwar Years, Annegret Fauser, UNC Chapel Hill
Sound in the City of Light: Radio Broadcasting and the Contested Soundscape of Interwar Paris, Rebecca P. Scales, Rochester Institute of Technology
Sounding Out Urban Mobility in Nineteenth-Century Paris, Aimée Boutin, Florida State University
Moderator: Evan Spritzer
7:30 p.m. Performance
Location: Skirball Center, NYU
Performance (immersive) on the Grand Staircase, Kimmel Center
Bernard-Marie Koltès, In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields, trans. Judith Miller, dir. Roland Auzet
Tickets (free of charge) must be obtained in advance from the Skirball Center. To reserve tickets, visit tickets.nyu.edu/single/SelectSeating.aspx?p=6676
For a full description of the play, visit nyuskirball.org/events/cotton-fields
Read an interview with Auzet at frenchculture.org.
Friday, October 6
Location: NYU Cantor Film Center, 36 East 8th Street
10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Roundtable 2: Human and Non-human Soundscapes
Bird Talk in Medieval France and Occitania, Eliza Zingesser, Columbia University
Plant Sound, Phillip Usher, NYU
Schwitters' Urlauten Sonata, Eugène Nicole, NYU
Words in the Air, Voices in the Trees, Rachel Mundy, Rutgers University, Newark
Moderator: Sarah Kay, NYU
2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Roundtable 3: Staging Sound and Silence
Absolutism and the Silent Art of French Opera, Benoît Bolduc, NYU
Conversation on Staging Sound and Silence with Roland Auzet, Theater Director and Judith G. Miller, NYU
Moderator: Judith G. Miller, NYU
4:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Boulez’s ‘Reorientations’: The Collège de France Lectures (1976-1995), Jonathan Goldman, Université de Montréal
8:00 p.m. Concert
Location: Park Avenue Armory
Participants are encouraged to attend
Boulez, Répons, performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain
To purchase tickets: armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/repons
Saturday, October 7
Location: NYU Steinhardt - Kimball Hall Lounge, 246 Greene Street, 1st Floor
10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Showing, Not Telling: Music as Spatial Art, Frank Madlener, Director, IRCAM
Series, Structure, Concept: Boulez’s Penser la musique aujourd’hui, Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University
2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
The Art of Listening, Peter Szendy, Brown University
3:00 - 4:50 p.m. Roundtable 4: Spectral and Post-spectral French Music: The Music of Michaël Levinas
Sound and its Revelations: Sound become Writing and Writing become Sound, Michaël Levinas, Composer
Discussion of Michaël Levinas’s music with Marilyn Nonken, NYU, and Irina Kataeva-Aimard
Moderated by François Noudelmann, Université Paris VIII
5:00 - 6:30 p.m. Concert
Location: NYU Steinhardt - Education Building, 35 West 4th Street, 3rd Floor, Recital Room 303
Messiaen and Levinas
Performed by Marilyn Nonken, NYU; Irina Kataeva-Aimard; and Roula Safar
Sunday, October 8
2:15 p.m.
Pre-show conversation before the final performance of In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields, with director Roland Auzet, translator and NYU Professor Judith Graves Miller, and Visiting Professor of French François Noudelmann.
Location: Kimmel Center, NYU, 60 Washington Square South. Top of the Kimmel Center's Grand Staircase, in the second floor balcony lounge. Please arrive early to make sure you have time to pick up your headset before the talk.
3:00 p.m. Performance
Location: Skirball Center, NYU
Performance (immersive) on the Grand Staircase, Kimmel Center
Bernard-Marie Koltès, In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields, trans. Judith Miller, dir. Roland Auzet
Tickets (free of charge) must be obtained in advance from the Skirball Center. To reserve tickets, visit tickets.nyu.edu/single/SelectSeating.aspx?p=6680
For a full description of the play, visit nyuskirball.org/events/cotton-fields
Event co-sponsored by NYU Steinhardt; the Skirball Center NYU; the Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture, NYU; and supported by the generosity of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. The performances of In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields are made possible thanks to the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy; FACE Foundation; La Muse en Circuit; Compagnie Acte-Opus; and the Center for French Civilization and Culture, NYU.