A semester-long study of how religion, music and the academy interact in Music City culminates April 17 with a daylong conference.
The God in Music City Capstone Conference will be the summation of months of concerts, panel discussions and lectures that have explored the interconnections of religion, music and regional identity. There have been programs about God in country music videos, a bus tour of Nashville houses of worship and an evening of Christian music by gay artists. A companion double-CD of music, God in Music City, was released by Lime Pulp Records (www.limepulprecords.com).
“Nashville musicians, scholars and religious leaders should not remain in separate worlds,” said Allison Pingree, director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching and co-leader of the Music Religion and the South study group of the university’s Center for the Study of Religion and Culture. “The Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, through its Music, Religion and the South project is finding ways to bring these individuals and communities into conversation with one another.”
The capstone conference is free and open to the public. To register, go to www.godinmusiccity.org. Daytime events will take place on the first floor of Vanderbilt Divinity School at 411 21st Ave. S. An evening concert will be held at Second Presbyterian Church at 3511 Belmont Blvd.
8:30 a.m., Registration and continental breakfast
8:45 a.m., Welcome
9 a.m., Keynote speaker Dale Cockrell, professor of musicology at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music: “This is My Story, This is My Song”
10 a.m., Break
10:15 a.m., John McClure, the Charles G. Finney Professor of Homiletics at Vanderbilt Divinity School,
and Allison Pingree, director, Vanderbilt Center for Teaching: “Using Music to Explore and Expand Religious Identity in Teaching and Preaching”
11:30 a.m., Lunch and Greg Barz, associate professor of ethnomusicology at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music: “Who are The People who Make God Music in Music City?”
1 p.m., Students present posters from their research projects from the God in Music City undergraduate course
2:15 p.m., Break
2:30 p.m., Michael Rose, associate professor of composition at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music: “Provisional Conversion to Religious “Truth Through Music”
3:45 p.m., Break
4 p.m., Panel discussion moderated by Robin Jensen, Luce Chancellor’s Professor of the History of Christian Art and Worship at Vanderbilt Divinity School: “Vanderbilt and the Popular Music Community in Nashville” featuring Vanderbilt graduates and current students who work in and around the Nashville music industry
At Second Presbyterian Church:
7:30 to 9:30 p.m., Tom Kimmel & Friends: “Music, Religion, and the South: Where Do Songs Come From?” Program to include Beth Nielsen Chapman, Marshall Chapman, Danny Flowers, Odessa Settles, Kirby Shelstad and Lisa Silver
Media Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu