Over the next twelve months, this website and blog will provide updates on all aspects of my academic research pertaining to Glenn Gould's radio compositions, which formed the basis for my research trips to the National Library and Archives, Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation during 2012. I was awarded the 'Craig Dobbin' Scholarship by the Ireland-Canada University Foundation to carry out extensive research on site in Ottawa and Toronto between August and September 2012, more information about which can be found at the ICUF Website here.
The project is titled 'The Convergence of Landscape and Soundscape in Glenn Gould's Radio Art', and most of my research relates harmonic theories of tonality and form to the ethnographic, fabricated compositions devised by Gould for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In what is the first large-scale academic research project devoted exclusively to Gould's radio compositions, I undertake an exhaustive study and analysis of the original field tapes, scripts, interview transcripts, musical examples and ambient sounds used in the three programs that make up The Solitude Trilogy. Most of my own music-analytical work is focused on the last of these programs, titled 'The Quiet in the Land' on which I have been invited to present a lecture as part of the School of Music, University College Dublin's Seminar Series in Musical Analysis.
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| 2012 scholarship award ceremony at the residence of the Canadian Ambassador to Ireland. Photo Copyright Ireland-Canada University Foundation www.icuf.ie |
In September 2013, I will also be broadcasting a program that tests the contrapuntal techniques developed by Glenn Gould in his CBC programs with a view to exploring if radio can function as music. Given that this research trip would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of Mick Hanley at 103.2 Dublin City FM (the community radio station that has been my musical home these past five years), it is fitting that this program will be devised especially for my regular (and new) listeners.
Please bookmark this page for more updates about forthcoming papers, broadcasts and blog posts. As always, it will also serve as a blog for my other activities and musical projects.
Karishmeh Felfeli
01 March 2013
