Steve Dillon Demonstrates jam2jam at ISME conference in Bologna July 2008.

Congratulations to Dr Felicity Baker who was awarded the prestigious University of Queensland’s Excellence in Research award to the value of AUS$70,000. This is a great achievement for music therapy as she was awarded alongside nanotechnology, and various other hard core science research.

Listen to: Susan Hawkins would like to invite you to have a listen to her latest project airing on ABC Radio National in Australia on Sunday 28th September (7am AEST) and repeated on Wednesday 1 October (7pm AEST). For those of you not in Australia, the program will be available online to stream and download at: “Music and Intimacy: A long street in London and beyond”

Susan Hawkins is an Australian composer. She is also a social worker with many years experience working with older people in London. These two worlds coincide in a rare glimpse of personal exploration into empathy and art. This Encounter also features the insights of men and women in Derby, New York and Brisbane who take the arts and compassion seriously. They join Susan in conversations about aesthetics, identity, spirituality and growing old. ABC Radio National

Congratulations to Toby Gifford whose PhD project – “Interactive music software to accompany human musicians” (Faculty of Creative Industries) was runner up in the bluebox Ideas Competition. Winning $7,500. The winning project was an innovative Robotic ultrasound treatment for Cancer.

Hugh Brown’ s PhD Project – “Musowiki.net” (Faculty of Creative Industries) received an Honorable mention.

Congratulations to Roger Gonzales Who has been awarded the Gordon Spearritt Prize for Best Student Presentation for his paper entitled ¡Latin Jazz! a radio documentary: the process and creation.

Network Jamming Press release

Group Laiengee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_D5S1FJ3os

Dr Don Devito from Tampa Florida has been working with drumming and disabled children and has recently partnered with community musicians in Gambia.

Group Laiengee is an ensemble for children with disabilities in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa. The director is Alsaney Camara who resides in Conakry and Tasana Camara who is a community musician in Gainesville, Florida. The philosophy behind their approach to music is that all human beings have an innate responsiveness to music similar to that of the infant and the sound of its mother. This natural instinct remains intact even when there are challenges of life brought by physical, cognitive, or emotional disability. Musicality is a basic human characteristic in people, cultures and a binding element in the socialization of a community. For more information on projects associated with this ensemble, please Email: projectguinea@gmail.com.

Celebrating Network Member Achievements

Congratulations to friends, researchers and students associated with the savetoDISC research network.

* Simon Chan’s The Other Production Company-Children’s music theatre piece Velveteen Rabbit was performed in New York as well as a tour of Brisbane Libraries.
* Roger Gonzales Master of Arts documentary on Latin Jazz as a creative work will be broadcast, and on the 10th of August, 2008, Australia wide on ABC Classic FM.

Musowiki Hughie Brown launched Musowiki and had a book Chapter accepted in the Musicological Society (Cambridge Scholars Press) Book.

* Steve Dillon had a book Chapter accepted in the Musicological Society (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) Book.
* Kathy Hirche was awarded an ACID Doctoral Scholarship for her work with Network Jamming experience design.

* Sweet Freedom was awarded a special Judges Award for Excellence Music in Communities from Music Play for Life and released a brilliant DVD and CD called My life My voice a collaboration with Down Syndrome Queensland, Brisbane City Council, Queensland University of Technology.

* Songs of resilience site established in Sweden by Dr Eva Saether Malmo Academy of Music
* The ACID Network Jamming team launched jam2jam establishing six global testing and research sites. developing the social network and client software.
* The ACID Network Jamming team ran Powerjam workshops at Brisbane Powerhouse over the school holidays. This work develops the Community model of the software.
* Luton eLearning centre will be using jam2jam with 2 electronic white boards to create live performances over the UK summer holidays.
* Presentations of the latest versions of jam2jam are took place in Rome and Bologna Italy at the ISME Community Music Activity Commission Seminar and the ISME Conference.
* Presentations and research sites have been established in Malmo Sweden and the home of Dance music- Manchester in the UK.
* Further presentations will be given at ISME in Bologna.

* Andrew Brown & Steve Dillon have been invited to present Jam2jam at the Performing The World Conference in New York City in October 2008.

* In September jam2jam will be working with a dual location jam with Indigenous Communities in Cairns in Far North Queensland and Inala in Suburban Brisbane as part of the National Indigenous Health and New Media Forum.
* Jim Chapman is now Dr Jim Chapman following the successful marking of his highly acclaimed thesis.

Greg Dodge and CreActives does Rhythm City a cross cultural music program In Brisbane.

A visit to Luton eLearning Centre just outside London with ex QUT Music Education Student Nathan Rye led to an experiment with jam2jam and interactive whiteboards which seem to be in lots of schools in the UK.

jam2jam whiteboard

Ian Drury’s Memorial Park Bench

Reasons to be Cheerful: I promised Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll students at QUT I would make a Pilgrimage to Ian Drury’s Memorial Park bench in Richmond Park in London. Unfortunately the solar powered mp3 player wasnt working.

jam2jam in Malmo

Sex Education Malmo Style

Malmo School students busking

jam2jam is a new instrument for collaborative media performance

The jam2jam system is a networked interactive software application linked to a digital social network that enables you to perform as DJ/VJ’s and share digital media. See the new jam2jam software and website now.

Steve Dillon’s own songs of resilience are recorded in this album: Wally on the window is now available on Youtube. Hear songs from the classic album at:

Download MP#’s of Wally on the window at Myspace

Great new song from Mishelle Bradford Jones

Australian Country music community

iRadio

eZine and iRadio documentary by Steve Dillon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxyRuPkApwY
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What is real? Is it something I can be?

See more of Simon Chan’s beautiful Children’s musical The Velveteen Rabbit as performed by Children in New York for Easter.

Network Jamming

See a documentary about Network Jamming with jam2jam research at youtube.

The Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) presents a documentary: Network Jamming with jam2jam

“The many references to student-centered learning and new interactive technologies place Dillon’s work at the cutting edge of contemporary music pedagogy. ” Music in Action Review by Capree Gaul of Music meaning and Transformation.

MCA review Associate Professor Andrew Brown’s book Computers in Music education: Amplifying musicality read the review.

Wally on The Window on Myspace

You may have heard of Weekend Warriors program but way back in 1999 Steve and a bunch of hot musos produced an album called Wally on the window. You can listen to and down;load some tracks from this great Roots Rhythm and Blues album at the Wally on the window my space site.

New Internationalist Radio Interview

Listen to an interview with Brian Procopis (Sweet Freedom) & Steve Dillon(save to DISC) Called Musical unions streamed on New Internationalist Radio by Social justice journalist Chris Richards. The interview explores the Scattered people project and how music has affected the lives of refugees relocated in Australia.

Listen to streamed Broadcast: New Internationalist Radio

Music in Communities Documented
Greg Dodge from CreActives and Oxygen42 has put together an impressive website application that documents his incredible involvement with Community music. See here

Good luck with the award Greg you get our vote for the most passionate committed and energetic music leader in Australia.

Jam2jam at Sydney Powerhouse Beta_Space

beta_space

Example of an AV Jam

Simon Chan’s Velveteen Rabbit in New York.

Creactives opens new School of Rock program for under 18′.

AV Jamming goes into the Sydney Powerhouse Beta Space for a 6 week Installation.

Many thanks To Liora Bresler for her encouragement:

‘It’s a very compelling book. I just read parts of it, but the book is wonderfully engaging, deals with central ideas and in a powerful way. Thanks much for sharing! ‘ Professor Liora Bresler University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, USA.

Songs of Resilience wiki has been created to record stories and songs about meaningful music making for life.

Velveteen Rabbit

Congratulations to Simon Chan savetoDISC PhD Candidate whose ‘ The Other Production Company’ theatre production of the Velveteen Rabbit is currently touring Brisbane Libraries performed by Opera Queensland singers. The work will have a New York Production in March 2008. The Velveteen Rabbit is a children’s music theatre piece that deals with issues of otherness and scapegoating which is the topic of Simon’s Practice led PhD. Simon’s work in music theatre composition. This is leading edge research using creative production to examine complex social issues in distinctive sound communities in sustainable 21st century ways.

In memory of Dr Janet Mills

The music education community mourns the sad loss of Dr Janet Mills, Research Fellow at the Royal College of Music, London who died on 24 December 2007,after a courageous battle against illness.
A Service of Thanksgiving was held at 2.00pm on Friday 4 January 2008 at
St Peter’s Church, Wolvercote, Oxford OX2 8AQ.
No flowers, please. Donations, if desired, as a cheque payable to Sobell House

Hospice Charity, may be sent to A.W. Bruce Ltd, 29 Rogers St, Oxford OX2 7JS. David Acheson (Husband of Dr Janet Mills) Our thoughts and prayers are with Janet, David and family.

CSP released ‘Music meaning and Transformation on Monday 10th December 2007.

Congratulations to savetoDISC network members Sweet Freedom on the release of ‘My Life, my voice’ song performed by Downs Syndrome children and their families and friends. The song is a great example of the wonderful work Sweet Freedom does using music to unify and give voice to sound communities. A pre release mix of the song can be heard at Riverbed studios myspace site. QUT Master of Music Graduates Russell Sullivan has done some marvelous production with a cast of hundreds participating including QUT undergraduate students and some great guitar playing from MMus Graduate Bruce Stewart.

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