Publication

CAML Review: Special issue on the impact of Covid-19 on music communities - Call for Contributions

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the music industry upside down and has impacted all levels of creating, sharing, promoting, researching, studying and preserving music. How has the pandemic affected music collections and services in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (collectively known as the GLAM sector)? National regulations for social distancing around the world have resulted in cancelled tours and festivals, interruption in writing and recording and the shifting of these music-making practices onto virtual platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Zoom. While some artists are archiving these performances, many expire after 24 hours and are lost documents capturing this moment in history. Instructors have likewise had to grapple with ways of delivering lessons remotely, with private and college/university-level instruction changed drastically through digital mediation. While other economic sectors are planning for gradual reopening, the music and education sectors are predicted to endure longer periods of isolation. These sectors, which require physical closeness, face some uncertainty about when in-person activities can resume and the economic sustainability of the industry’s current model.

What role do the GLAM play within this evolving context? With GLAM doors shut to the public, how are libraries and archives responding to and adapting services to support clients? What archival work is being done to document the pandemic and its impact on performance, production, consumption, dissemination, preservation and curation of local, national and international music communities?

For this special issue of CAML Review, the Editorial Board seeks contributions addressing the impact of Covid-19 on all aspects of music-making, including issues of physical and digital curation, preservation and dissemination through a variety of music-making activities and across all genres. Submissions may take the form of standard academic papers or creative works such as first-person narratives, interviews, memoirs, poetry.

For standard academic papers please send an abstract of 250-words; for creative works please send a short description of the intended submission. Deadline: November 15, 2020 to Jan Guise (jan dot guise at utoronto dot ca) and Jada Watson (jwatso4 at uottawa dot ca). We will contact contributors by November 30, 2020 with instructions for final submission.

Final submissions will be due by March 15, 2021.

Jan Guise and Jada Watson

CAML Review, Co-Lead Editors