Undergraduate Course: Festivals (MUSI08064)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Music |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | To enable students to curate, produce, exhibit and perform at a multi-disciplinary music, film, and arts festival. It will draw on the university¿s ongoing live music research, the local artistic ecology and Edinburgh¿s unique status as a festival city. It is designed to be interdisciplinary with a live event jointly organised by mixed groups of students as the capstone to the course. The course encourages collaboration across different subject areas and platforms for exhibition, events and performances. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of the history and present state of music, film, and arts festivals as both cultural practices and industries.
2. Relate the British festival sector to broader contexts of the music industries, creative industries, and the state.
3. Critically analyse research on festivals, including ideology, economic impact, and audience studies. Relate academic research on festivals to a practice-based context.
4. Work successfully with their peers to take the lead on planning and managing resources for a arts and music festival.
5. Exercise autonomy and initiative in the production of the festival. |
Assessment Information
One group work festival proposal in the form of a presentation (including individual c.1,000 word reflective essays on the group work experience (self-evaluated by students and will be revisited during practical/crit-based assessment).
One practical/crit-based assessment on the experience of producing a multi-disciplinary festival (40%).
One c.2,000 word essay analysing a historical, theoretical, or practical aspect of festivals (60%).
OR
A portfolio of work with supporting reflective analysis contexualising their own work with the literature on festivals of up to 1,000 words (60%)
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Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
This course is designed to work across ECA and will cover the history, theory, and practice of festivals, with an emphasis on music festivals but also including film and other arts festivals. Students will curate, produce, and perform at a multi-disciplinary music, film, and arts festival (the programme will depend on student ideas and ECA interest). It will draw on the university's ongoing live music research and Edinburgh's unique status as a festival city. |
| Syllabus |
Topics covered in the course will include:
1.History of the social, cultural, and business practices of festivals
2. The impact of the growth of the festival market on the economics of the live and recorded music industries
3. Promoters, artists, and audiences
4. The role of festivals in the construction of genre rules and canon formation
5. Geography, locality, rural and urban festivals
6. Festivals and imagined communities
7. Production of an urban music and arts festival
8. Festivals, tourism, and urban regeneration
9. Festival curation
10. Festivals, politics, and the state
11. Panel discussion with professionals working in the festival sector
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| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Bennett, A (ed). 2004. Remembering Woodstock. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Bowen, H. and Daniels, M. 2005. Does the music matter? Motivations for attending a music festival. Event Management, 9, pp. 155-164.
Brennan, M. 2007. Failure to Fuse: The Jazz-Rock Culture War at the 1969 Newport Jazz Festival. Jazz Research Journal, Volume 1/1, pp.73-98.
Brennan, M. and Webster, E. 2011. Why concert promoters matter. Scottish Music Review, 2 (1), pp. 1-25.
Clarke, M. 1982. The Politics of Pop Festivals. London: Junction Books.
Crawford, I. 1997. Banquo on Thursdays: The Inside Story of 50 Years of the Edinburgh Festival. Edinburgh: Goblinshead.
Frey, B.S. 2011. Festivals. In R. Towse (ed) The Handbook of Cultural Economics, 2nd revised edition. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp.216-219.
Frith, S. 2007. Live Music Matters. Scottish Music Review, 1 (1), pp. 1-17.
Frith, S., M. Brennan, M. Cloonan and E. Webster. Forthcoming March 2013. The History of Live Music in Britain 1950-1967: From The Dance Hall to the 100 Club. Aldershot: Ashgate Books.
Hughes, S. 1981. Glyndebourne: A History of the Festival Opera, 2nd edn. Newton Abbot: David and Charles.
Mazdon, L. 2007. Transnational 'French' Cinema: The Cannes Film Festival. Modern and Contemporary France 15 (1), pp.9-20.
Gamson, J. 1996. The organizational shaping of collective identity: the case of lesbian and gay film festivals in New York. Sociological Forum 11 (2), pp.231-261.
McKay, G. 2004. 'Unsafe things like youth and jazz': Beaulieu Jazz Festivals (1956-61), and the origins of pop festival culture in Britain¿, in A. Bennett (ed.), Remembering Woodstock. Aldershot: Ashgate, 90-110.
Quinn, B. 2005. 'Arts Festivals and the City', Urban Studies 42 (5-6): 927-943.
De Valck, M. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
44 hours:
- 20 teaching and tutorial
- 2 eight-hour days of pre-production
- 1 eight-hour day of the festival event and crit assessment
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| Keywords | Music, Art, Festivals, Exhibition, Curating |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Matt Brennan
Tel: (0131 6)50 2903
Email: m.t.brennan@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Brad Herbert
Tel: (0131 6)50 2422
Email: brad.herbert@ed.ac.uk |
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