Summer 2005

Greetings to SMPC members!

In this newsletter we try to convey to you the most important activities that have developed in SMPC and related societies in the preceding year. Our main features relate to past and future SMPC elections and to past and future conferences.

Elections

The most recent SMPC election (Autumn, 2004) has led to a new SMPC Executive committee. Two new members came on board (William Forde Thompson & Laurel Trainor) and two members retired at the end of their terms (Betsy Marvin and Isabelle Peretz). The current board consists of the following members:

* Scott Lipscomb is an At-Large member (2006) acting as interim Treasurer due to an early departure of Justin London, Treasurer.

The two departing members-at-large this year (Isabelle Peretz and Betsy Marvin) have been invaluable as board members and we thank them for their service. As well, Justin London, who agreed to stay on one year to facilitate a smooth transition for the new secretary will leave his post a few months early (in August, 2005) for a Fulbright in England (congratulations, Justin!). He too deserves our thanks for a job well done. To complete the last few months of his term, Scott Lipscomb has graciously agreed to step into this position and will serve as interim treasurer until the newly elected treasurer assumes office on January 1, 2006. Finally, we wish to thank all of those SMPC members who were nominated by colleagues and admirers and who agreed to run for office.

Speaking of elections, during the summer of 2005 we have an ongoing Call for Nominations for officers and at-large board members. Please help us by giving some thought to people whom you think would serve SMPC well either as President, Treasurer, or as an Executive Committee member. Assisting in the development of the slate of candidates that will be presented to the voting membership in September (2005) is the SMPC nominating committee. Lola Cuddy will chair the committee, and Betsy Marvin and Marianne Keilan-Gilbert will serve as members (Mari Jones is an ex-officio member). Send nominations to William Thompson (b.thompson@utoronto.ca) before the closing date of August 1, 2005. Note that we have sent out a call for nominations to all past and present members of SMPC. However, only current members will be able to vote in the fall. The moral is: if want to vote, make sure your dues are paid in full (see the final page for details on membership status and dues).

Updates on Bylaw Amendment

The last SMPC newsletter (2004) outlined a plan to revise the SMPC Bylaws that pertained primarily to the stipulated role of the office of Secretary/Treasurer. In the original version of the SMPC Bylaws, the duties of secretary and treasurer were wrapped into a single, somewhat overwhelming, position. Accordingly an amendment was proposed that the duties of this office be partitioned into two new offices: Secretary, with duties defined (briefly) as maintaining elections, correspondence, and related activities; and Treasurer, with duties defined (briefly) as maintaining membership lists and overseeing financial transactions. This change was approved by the Executive Committee at the board meeting in August of 2004. Each office has a three-year term, but elections to them will be scheduled so that the respective officer holders’ terms are staggered. To realize this staggering schedule, Justin London was asked to stay on as treasurer for one additional year (2005).

ICMPC & SMPC meetings

ICMPC8 was held in August 3-7, 2004. This meeting realized a tradition that has been observed by SMPC, namely that we schedule SMPC conferences in years that alternate with ICMPC conferences. Therefore, SMPC (which is a participating organization for support of ICMPC) joined with other member organizations to participate in the five-day conference held at Northwestern University. This was a highly successful venture, owing much to the activities of SMPC past President Richard Ashley and to the tireless efforts of SMPC Executive Committee member Scott Lipscomb. SMPC owes a debt of gratitude to all those who helped out with ICMPC8, but especially to Ric and Scott. This conference was a very elaborate and enjoyable affair, with a total of 313 scholars (116 students & 197 non-students) attending from around the world. Talks and symposia were uniformly stimulating and provocative.

Future ICMPC conferences are scheduled for 2006 (ICMPC9) and 2008 (ICMPC10). The next ICMPC, planned for 2006, will be held in Bologna, Italy, hosted by Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Italy between August 22 and August 26, 2006. The June 2005 call for abstract submissions for this conference has a deadline of December 31, 2005; keep this in mind if you plan to participate in this conference. You can follow unfolding plans for this conference by consulting the website: www.icmpc2006.org.

Details on ICMPC10 scheduled for 2008 are understandably sketchier. But plans for this conference, which will be held in Sapporo, Japan, are already under discussion.

SMPC 2005

Our tradition of alternating SMPC conferences with ICMPC conferences (see above) has been altered slightly this year. The reasons are several, but the major one is that SMPC essentially hosted ICMPC8 at Northwestern last year (due to unavoidable problems that developed with the original plan to hold ICMPC8 in Argentina). As a consequence, constraints on SMPC organizers (i.e., in terms of time, effort etc.) required that we reconsider hosting another full-blown so soon on the heels of ICMPC8. We needed a more creative solution to SMPC 2005 that did not entail another large conference. Our solution, as most of you now know, was to hold a series of workshops.

SMPC 2005 Workshops. Ani Patel has been in charge of organizing the SMPC Workshops and has done a terrific job. The workshops are scheduled for August 5-7, 2005 at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego. The Executive Committee instituted a call for nominations for workshops and received many good ones, all of which offered topics of great relevance for scholars who teach and engage in research on music perception and cognition. Four workshops were selected (leaders names in parentheses): Music and dynamics (Edward Large, Devin McAuley), Teaching Music Cognition (William Forde Thompson), Evaluation of impaired/spared musical abilities (Isabelle Peretz, Lola Cuddy), Music and Language (Ani Patel, Jennifer Saffran). Descriptions of the workshops and related information are at the SMPC website (www.musicperception.org) under ‘workshops’. Although registration for the workshops is now closed, members who have registered should check the web site for the latest developments.

Breaking News and Notes

It appears that the international community may be waking up to the importance of scientific research on the perception and cognition of music and auditory events. The new BRAMS (Brain, Music, and Sound) is a prime example of this growing interest. This is a research unit affiliated with the University of Montreal, McGill University, and the Montreal Neurological Institute that is devoted to the study of music cognition with a focus on neuroscience. As well, there are soundings of other new institutes emerging to examine related issues. Among these are the Centre for Music and Science (director Ian Cross) at Cambridge and an institute for Music and Mind (Laurel Trainor) at McMaster, which may be coming on line soon.

Also a new organization has been developed in psychology that may be of interest to researchers in music perception and cognition. This is the society for Auditory Perception, Cognition and Action Meeting (APCAM) (http://apcam.us/) which has been welcoming to presentations by researchers in music perception and cognition. This year the annual conference is organized by Peter Pfordresher and Devin McAuley.

Finally, it is with sadness we report that Gordon Shaw (of the Mozart Effect) has died.