The stage presence of David Bowie, music playing cyborgs or Andreas Gabalier as a problem case in pop culture: musicologists will examine these and a vast range of other subjects at an international conference at the University of Graz between the 20th to the 23rd of October. Around 80-100 participants and 22 presentations are due at SZ 15.21 in the ReSoWi Centre, while simultaneously 9 multimedia poster presentations will accompany the conference in “A Step Beyond: Popular Music and the Stride Across the Border(s)”, an event organised by Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Werner Jauk from the Department of Music.
“Overstepping the mark is the consistent trademark of pop – it is a counter-culture to the establishment, but has also always had close links to mass media and thus to the mainstream “, Jauk said. These are contrasts that research is examining closely as it looks into the methods and lifestyles of many very different musicians – from Deichkind to Take Death or to Cindy & Bert. Pop, rock, jazz, political issues and technical music are among the subjects in focus and trends stretching across the globe will be analysed: these range from the independent scene in Manila to pop in Angola, gay music in London, or bursting out across musical frontiers in Brazil.

The conference will itself be breaking all the bounds in practice: it will be held in cooperation with the elevate-Festival in the Graz Forum Stadtpark, the music venues Stockwerk Jazz and the Künstlerhaus plus the University of Graz will rock with sounds that reach out beyond the limits during the conference. An opportunity will be provided to study musical performances in vivid detail during these live gigs that skip across the borderlines; what is more the conference presentations and lectures will also be available to a very broad public as streams.