This page is dedicated to discuss past and future sessions for the AMS Childhood and Youth Study Group.

2023 AMS Session

Retrofitting the Bandura for a Soviet Childhood: Ukraine’s National Instrument, Violent Erasures, and the Plan for a Communist Music

Maria Sonevytsky (Bard College)

Discussant(s): Anicia Timberlake (Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University), Knar Abrahamyan (Columbia University), Joy Calico (Vanderbilt University)

Organized by the AMS Childhood and Youth Study Group

Our invited speaker, Maria Sonevytsky, will present a paper entitled “Retrofitting the Bandura for a Soviet Childhood: Ukraine’s National Instrument, Violent Erasures, and the Plan for a Communist Music.” This study addresses the Soviet regime’s creation of mass bandura orchestras for children in Kyiv, just years after the Soviet regime had executed much of the older generation of bandura players in Kharkiv for supposed “anti-Soviet activities.” Anicia Timberlake (Peabody Institute- Johns Hopkins University), Knar Abrahamyan (Columbia University), and Joy Calico (Vanderbilt University) will respond to the paper, drawing on their own research on music and childhood in Communist and post-Communist societies.

For more information see the AMS-SMT 2023 Program.

2022 AMS Session: Critical Childhood Studies and Music Workshop

This session will be a colloquy in the form of a provocation and series of responses on the state of music studies and childhood. As proposed by members of the study group at last year’s meeting, Ryan Bunch will present a paper addressing the intersections of childhood studies and music studies, emerging in part from the study group’s reading group discussion which was held in February. We are calling for brief responses to this paper addressing such topics as the parameters of our field, areas of productive overlap and intervention between music studies and childhood studies, and the future of studies in music, childhood, and youth. Responses may be formal or somewhat informal. There will also be time for general discussion. If you would like to prepare a response for the session, please contact us and briefly describe your proposed response. We also encourage all who plan to attend the session to read Ryan’s paper in advance. We are working on making the session accessible for remote participation for those who can’t attend in person.

Ryan’s essay “Who Is This For? Critical Childhood Studies and Music” is available here.

2021 Childhood and Youth Study Group Session at the AMS Annual Meeting

  1. Benjamin Liberatore, Columbia University: Nothing Is Snipped Out’: Cathedral Choristers’ Reflections on Choral Worship in Pandemic Time

Respondent: Susan Boynton, Columbia University

  1. Matthew Roy, Westmont College: The Socializing Mirror: Performing Nineteenth-Century Girlhood and Boyhood

Respondent: Roe-Min Kok, McGill University

  1. Alexandra Krawetz: Yale University: “Charming Simple Songs of Children”: Negotiating Child Agency, Authority, and Authorial Voice in the Interwar Archives

Respondent: Anicia Timberlake, Peabody Institute

  1. Demetrius Shahmehri, Columbia University: “Won’t you play along?” Music, Memory, and the Voice of the Child in Undertale”

Respondent: Tyler Bickford, University of Pittsburgh

  1. Lindsay Wright, Yale University: Race to the Beginning: Musical Prodigies and the Racialization of Early Musical Achievement

Respondent: Matthew Roy

  1. Cristina R. Saltos, “Exploring How the Intersection of the Digital Humanities and Creative Learning Can Promote Equitable Scholastic Collaborations with Youth”

Respondent: Ryan Bunch, Rutgers University