SOAS Festival of Ideas: Meet the curator Caspar Melville

Hi Caspar! You're curating this year's SOAS Festival of Ideas. Would you be able to give a bit of background about the Festival? When and why did the Festival of Ideas start?

I think the Festival of Ideas is a pretty new concept at SOAS, which got slightly… interrupted by the pandemic. The last one was in 2020, organised by my former colleague Amina Yaqin, on the theme of Decolonising Knowledge and was entirely online, so I think this year’s will be the first ever face-to-face Festival of ideas. The broad idea is to showcase SOAS research culture and vibrant intellectual environment and also invite people from outside the institution into SOAS and build links with other institutions and the community – what in academia is known as ‘knowledge exchange’.

How did you become involved as a curator?

Well, it was a bit of a surprise, to be honest. Last summer I got a call from the director of research inviting me to be a Knowledge Exchange Fellow. I didn’t really know what that was but I said yes because it sounded like fun. Turned out that part of the role was to conceive and run the Festival of Ideas, so suddenly, out of the blue I had a festival with a budget, and pretty much a free hand to decide what to do with it. The first thing I did was to push the timings back, it was originally going to be in November 2021 but in my experience, far too many things in academia are rushed, with ridiculously short deadlines (and suffer for it) so I wanted to give myself some proper time to think it out and plan. Now it’s less than a month away and of course, the tension is ratcheting up, but we’ve got a lot of it in place and – fingers crossed - it’s all going to plan

This year's theme is 'Thinking Through Music’. Can you explain the meaning behind the theme? Is there a reason why this theme was picked for this year in particular?

I teach creative industries and music industry courses at SOAS, and my research is about Afro-diasporic music (club culture) in London and I’m a passionate music lover and record collector, so it was always going to be about music. The theme ‘thinking through music’ popped into my mind right at the start- I thought it might just be a working title until I could think of something else, but it stuck. One thing I like about the title is the double meaning- we’re using this festival to think through music, but also viewing music (and dance) as a way to think. There’s no particular hook this year except that music is important every year, and is a unifying factor which doesn’t always get the academic attention it deserves as a vital part of culture.

In what ways does the programme explore this theme?

The programme comes at the theme of thinking through music from a variety of angles and using a number of different formats. So we start with an improvised jam session, hosted by the South London collective Stream Down, who are repping the incredibly vibrant London jazz scene. The twist is we will be inviting SOAS music students (and teachers) to join in, playing the wide range of instruments from Africa, Asia and the Middle East that we teach at SOAS. It’s a kind of international hybrid jam session, creating new music on the spot – and kicking off with a discussion about the importance of these kinds of sessions in the teaching of and development of jazz, with jazz historian Catherine Tackley, journalist Kevin Le Gendre and the leader of Steam Down Wayne Francis (Ahnansé).

Then there will be a variety of panels looking at different aspects of music, such as the importance of dance – as a kind of embodied knowledge – with a range of DJs and choreographers and a DJ Summit where we explore DJing as a kind of scholarship, archiving and cultural connection, with DJs from techno, house, jazz and RnB, followed by a party in the students union. We also have a live recording of a student podcast called Scattered Sounds which originated in my podcasting class last year; a music workshop run by a couple of talented London cultural entrepreneurs calling themselves Sound & Solidarity; a discussion of how white supremacy continues to frame how we teach musicology, ethnomusicology and even music tech; and an interview with the brilliant pianist and composer Nikki Yeoh, where she will be sitting at the piano and playing some of her compositions. So, we are mixing up academics and scholars with practitioners, artists and entrepreneurs, students and professors, dancers and DJs, for some deep theoretical debates, story-telling and of course lots of dancing.

Are there any sessions you're particularly excited about?

To be honest I’m pretty excited about all of them but just to highlight two: With my theory hat on I’m really looking forward to interviewing the musician and cultural theorist Fumi Okji about her brilliant book Jazz as Critique, in which she thoroughly destroys the philosopher Theodor Adorno’s dismissal of jazz. I teach Adorno and I think he has very valuable things to say about the Culture Industry, but I’ve always thought he was totally wrong about jazz, and Fumi’s book has helped me see how. With my ravers hat on I can’t wait for the ‘Shubz’ party which the Sound & Solidarity guys are planning after their workshop, in a secret location at SOAS. They specialise in taking over institutions (like the V&A) and turning them into parties and they’re going to bring a vintage sound system into the university and I can’t wait to hear it.

What do you hope people take away from the SOAS Festival of Ideas?

I’d like people who come to the festival to take away a lot of fascinating ideas, perspectives, stories and images which will deepen their understanding and appreciation of music and dance as a form of culture, politics and thinking, and I’d like people from outside the university to see that SOAS is a place that is welcoming and open, which takes vernacular culture seriously, is part of its community in London and is dedicated to generating knowledge and positive experiences not only for our students and staff but for our society at large.

The SOAS Festival of Ideas has something for everyone. Take a look at the events taking place from 29 October to 30 November 2022.