Aug. 24 AIRS Expert Workshop Sapporo 4 - 7 pm - Pre-Conference ICMPC10

1^st AIRS International Expert Workshop  Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing: Development, Pedagogy, Well-beingThemes and Variations 

ICMPC10 Pre-Convention Event

University of Hokkaido, Japan, August 24, 2008     4 pm – 7 pm

(for program, scroll to bottom and download attachment -- includes also the material below)

A major international research collaboration entitled “AIRS - Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing ”  includes over 60 scholars from more than a dozen countries. One of its first formal activities is the 1^st AIRS International Expert Workshop taking place August 24, 2008 just prior to the opening of the 10^th International Conference of Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC10) at Hokkaido University, August 25-29. The workshop is co-chaired by AIRS Project Director Professor Annabel Cohen (University of Prince Edward Island, Canada) and Professor Mayumi Adachi (Hokkaido University, Japan), chair of the Organizing Committee of ICMPC10.

The AIRS Expert Workshop brings together AIRS researchers from Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland, China, UK, Austria and USA. They will share information among themselves as well as with the greater ICMPC10 audience, both students and faculty.

Each of the AIRS research themes – Development,  Pedagogy, and Well-being-- will be introduced by a specialist researcher, and papers providing specific research examples within these themes will be presented.  Professor Sandra Trehub (University of Toronto, Canada) will provide a commentary on the material presented. Open discussion will follow.

Proceedings of this 1st AIRS Expert Workshop will be published in Psychomusicology: A Journal of Music Cognition. The issue will be dedicated to Johan Sundberg, a member of the AIRS collaboration and an eminent contributor to the science of singing for over four decades.  The co-editors are Annabel Cohen,  Sandra Trehub, and Sten Terstrom.

Presentations on AIRS have been and will be made at several other International Meetings over the summer, but the University of Hokkaido ICMPC10 venue draws together the largest group of key AIRS researchers with the aim of advancing this exciting new international interdisciplinary initiative on singing.

Sponsorship of the AIRS Expert Workshop from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.