Talk
Conference: Documenting Jazz in the German Democratic Republic

Dublin Institute of Technology, Conservatory of Music and Drama

Sat, 19.01.2019
1:45 PM - 15:15 Dublin Institute of Technology

Talk by Dr Anja Bunzel, Maynooth University, as part of the “Documenting Jazz Conference”, 17–19 January 2019.

Jazz music is loved worldwide. With Documenting Jazz, the first jazz conference in Ireland, the Conservatory of Music and Drama at the DIT aims to debate how and why jazz has been documented, by whom and for what purposes. The process of documentation has arguably been just as important as, and in some ways more important, than ‘the music itself’, shaping its reception and spread throughout the world.

The event is delivered in partnership with the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland, the Society for Musicology in Ireland and Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, UK. 

As a part of the conference the German Musicologist Dr Anja Bunzel will present a paper on “The Peitz Jazzwerkstatt (1973-1982): Documenting Free Jazz in the German Democratic Republic”.
A small town in the Lusatia region, Peitz is located c. ninety minutes southeast of Berlin and twenty minutes from the Polish border. Among musical advocators, Peitz is also known for its vibrant jazz scene. Ulli Blobel and Peter “Jimi” Metag organised the first jazz concert in a movie theatre in Peitz on 23 June 1971. Jazz events were held regularly from then on and were coined ‘Jazzwerkstatt’ (‘jazz workshop’) in 1973 until they were banned again in 1982. Apart from Ulli Blobel’s anthology “Woodstock am Karpfenteich” (‘Woodstock at the Carp Pond’), a milestone in documenting Peitz’s jazz tradition, little is known about the “Jazzwerkstatt”. Dr Bunzel’s paper deals with the documentation of the Peitz Jazzwerkstatt between 1973 and 1982, both within its own context and in terms of its more recent reception.
 
Dr Anja Bunzel graduated from Freie Universität, Berlin, in 2012 with a Master’s Degree in Musicology. From 2012 to 2016, she pursued PhD studies at Maynooth University. From October 2017 to September 2018, she then was a postdoctoral research fellow at Maynooth University, funded by the Irish Research Council. She currently teaches at Maynooth University and will be guest-lecturing at Kunstuniversität Graz in the spring term 2019.

Registration via Eventbrite
 
Organised by the DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology)
Supported by the Goethe-Institute Ireland