Public Research Seminar: Pedro Cravinho
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire - Workshop 2
200 Jennens Road, B4 7XR
Free - booking required
If you wish to join us online, please register at https://www.bcu.ac.uk/conservatoire/events-calendar and you shall be sent Zoom codes by email shortly before the seminar.
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“For a Free Portugal”: Jazz, Colonialism, and the Politics of Memory
Pedro Cravinho - Royal Birmingham Conservatoire)
This paper examines the role of music as a medium and repository of memory, using a case study to illustrate how the ‘past’ resonates and influences the compositional process. Specifically, it focuses on the composition For a Free Portugal (Horizon SP-710) released in 1976 by North American double bass player, activist, and composer Charlie Haden (1937-2014). It highlights how Haden’s personal and political experiences shaped this composition. Through the use of distinct musical signifiers, Haden creates an aural experience that reflects both individual and collective memories, as well as his intense anti-fascist and anti-colonial activism. Haden’s For a Free Portugal evokes memories of Portuguese colonialism that transcend both spatial and temporal boundaries, eliciting various meanings in listeners not only in Portugal and the newly independent Portuguese-speaking African nations but also worldwide.
Pedro Cravinho is a Portuguese, Birmingham-based, classical-trained musician with a jazz education, researcher and educator.
Cravinho is a Senior Research Fellow in Ethnomusicology and Jazz Studies at RBC, teaching in the Jazz Department, and co-leading the RBC Jazz Studies Research Cluster. His research interests include the intersection of music, media, and archives, with a focus on urban music practices since 1900.
Running time approx. one hour and 30 minutes
Seminars are in RBC Workshop 2 and can also be accessed online via Zoom. A link to view the seminar via Zoom will be emailed ahead of the session.
Real and virtual doors will open around 3.25pm, the seminar begins at 3.30pm and discussion will conclude around 4.55pm.