THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2017/2018

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : Music

Undergraduate Course: Festivals (MUSI08064)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryTo 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.
Course description Topics covered in the course may include (but are not limited to) the following:

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

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.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements Enrolment priority is given in this order:
1. MA Music students
2. ECA students
3. non-ECA students.
Any student who is not on MA Music MUST contact the Course Secretary in order to request enrolment.
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2017/18, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  40
Course Start Semester 2
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 11, Seminar/Tutorial Hours 11, Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 16, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 158 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 60 %, Practical Exam 40 %
Additional Information (Assessment) 1. One c.1,500 word Reflective Essay (40%) on the experience of producing a multi-disciplinary festival.

2. One c.2,000 word essay analysing a historical, theoretical, or practical aspect of festivals - 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%)
Feedback Formative feedback will be provided during week 7 with a feedback session/group discussion based around the micro-festival that takes place in week 6.
No Exam Information
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.
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.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
Additional Class Delivery Information 2-hour lecture/practical in weeks 1-11
pre-production day in week 6
festival day/night in week 6
KeywordsMusic,Art,Festivals,Exhibition,Curating
Contacts
Course organiserDr Tom Western
Tel:
Email: twestern@exseed.ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Carrie Lyall
Tel: (0131 6)50 2422
Email: Carrie.Lyall@ed.ac.uk
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