Welcome to www.cynthiamgrund.dk

July 30, 2010

Thanks for stopping by! This site collects news and information about the research, teaching and academic networking activities in which I am currently engaged as a member of the Philosophy Department in the Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study og Religions (IFPR) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) at Odense. I hope that you find these as fascinating as I do!

June 30, 2010: NordForsk awards a grant of 571,239 Norwegian kroner to NNIMIPA for 2010-2013.The Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics (NNIMIPA - www.nnimipa.org) becomes a research network under NordForsk (www.nordforsk.org) on September 1, 2010. Nordforsk contacted chief applicant Cynthia M. Grund on June 30 to announce the award of 571,239 Norwegian kroner (ca. 535,000 Danish kroner/88,000 US dollars) for 2010-2013. The decision was made by the director of NordForsk following an evaluation carried out by a panel of independent experts.

On June 13, 2010, a "Preview" tab was added to www.soundmusicresearch.org 's menu bar in order to inform about upcoming events, also those for which a date has yet to be fixed.
For all that has gone on in May 2010 and previously, please see "Archive for 'Updates' " available in the right-hand column on nearly every page of www.soundmusicresearch.org and the calendar available on the menu tab "Events/Calendar" on the site's menu bar.

After the conversational lecture with performance elements - "Texts, Choices, and Musical Performances" - given by William Westney and yours truly and hosted on June 2 by the Research Group "Choice and Text" within the Institute of Language and Communication at SDU, Odense - focus shifts to exams during the next few weeks and thereafter to summer projects. News and updates will, as always, be available on this site as well as on the sites listed to the right in the column "Websites and Webpages."

. . . May 24-May 31 the action moved to Iceland. Please see the menu tab "Bifröst" on www.soundmusicresearch.org for the homepage for the course "'If I could say it, I wouldn’t have to dance it' (Isadora Duncan): A Philosophical Investigation of Multimodality" taught by William Westney and Cynthia M. Grund at Bifröst U., Iceland, May 25-28 as part of a course exchange with SDU. On the menu tab "Reykjavik" you can read more about the concert with William Westney which was given at Salurinn, Friday evening, May 28, as well as the conference Music, Meaning and Method held in Reykjavik on May 29.

. . . and, back in England, . . . thanks to all who attended the benefit concert in London on May 22, 2010 given by William Westney for overseas charities and hosted by the Rotary Eclub of London Centenary 2010 with the cooperation of the Rotary Clubs of Greater London. Please see here as well as http://www.last.fm/music/William+Westney. Poster: here.

Thanks to all who attended the lunchtime concert at 12:00 noon on Monday, May 17 with William Westney at the Steinway grand in Cafeteria 4 at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense. Please see here for details.

Tuesday, May 18 was the occasion of the open research colloquium Music, Meaning and Empathy at SDU-Odense, Room O77, 10:00-17:00. This was the 16th national meeting of NTSMB - Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning (Netværk for Tværvidenskabelige Studier af Musik og Betydning). Please see here for details. Thanks to all who attended and made this an interesting and productive day.
A Facebook group - here - for the research program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound was established on April 28, and all are welcome to join. As a member you can receive updates about activities sponsored by the research program, pose questions, and share information.

Thanks to JANUS ARAGHIPOUR & the hundreds of guests who came by Cafeteria 4 at SDU Odense Thursday, April 29, for the lunchtime concert FLYGLET DANSER! (The Piano Dances!) a celebration of the Danish Dansens Dage/Days of Dance 2010. Janus performed - brilliantly! - a program (here) of classical and modern music inspired by dance styles throughout the years

For those who are already thinking of the fall semester (!), I will be teaching an upper-level course (conducted in English) on Nordic National Romanticism (here) that will focus on the philosophy and music associated with this complex of cultural and intellectual attitudes. These will be explored in historical and contemporary contexts and put into a broader perspective including the architecture, art, literature, theatre and politics of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.

New Book: Designing New Media: Learning, Communication and Innovation. Jesper Pilegaard and I have a chapter in this book, which has just been published in April, 2010 by Academica, entirely in English. The chapter presents our Percipitopia project on the virtual SDU-campus in Second Life and discusses diverse philosophical, pedagogical and design issues which it raises (for some online artilcles about the project, see here and here.) For the book, see www.gyldendal-akademisk.dk/Books/9788776757489.aspx and http://flipper.gyldendal.dk/9788776757489.book.