How to Pay your Students to Go to School: Student-run record labels and the creative pedagogue

The author examines a federally funded internship program he organized while serving as the director of the High School for Recording Arts Los Angeles program. The school paid students to operate their own record label. Under the American Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, approved organizations provide paid, for-credit internships to young people who meet the definition of opportunity youth. Through this partnership, students learned real-world skills, gained hands-on experience, and built their resumes. The author experienced a shift in his professional praxis from school leader to creative pedagogue. During the internship, the school experienced increased student attendance and enrolment, suggesting the paid internship resulted in increased opportunities for student learning. The author covers similar opportunities across the US and Canada.

When school goes home: Reimagining the educator’s role

The High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota, serves students who’ve had trouble in more traditional schools. Yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the school was able to maintain, and even exceed, its prepandemic metrics of achievement. Michael Lipset and Linda Nathan attribute this success to the school’s unique staffing structure. Instead of having content teachers attempt to meet the wide array of student needs on their own, the school takes a team-based approach, with traditional certified teachers serving as content advisers who manage student learning and other team members (many of whom have similar backgrounds as the students) addressing students’ personal needs. All faculty, no matter their specific role, are called facilitators of learning, but they focus on different ways of engaging students.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: An Analysis of Depictions of Canadian National Identity in the Juno Awards 2014 Broadcast

With changing dynamics of political communication merging education and information and giving rise to celebrity politics, entertainment media is now playing an integral role in creating a cultural context for individuals, especially young people, to become politically active. The Juno Awards 2014 broadcast presents an excellent opportunity for analysis of changing forms of political communication and celebrity politics in the Canadian context. This becomes especially true when recognizing the origins of the Juno Awards, with the creation of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) was designed to celebrate Canadian arts and culture on a national scale, but has evolved over the decades to become more focused on music promotion and commercial profitability than fair and equal artistic representation. For this study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to measure the most prominent features of Canadian national identity: multiculturalism, gender egalitarianism, the diffident and unpatriotic citizen, and Canada as a peacekeeping nation.

Live from the Met: Medium Theory and Digital Broadcast Cinema

Beginning with the 2006-07 season, the New York Metropolitan Opera began broadcasting live performances into select movie theatres around the world. This article explores the phenomenon using an approach known as medium theory. It draws from the work of three analysts in that tradition who have focused on the performing and recording arts: Edmund Carpenter, John Ellis, and James Monaco. The author coins the term “digital broadcast cinema” (DBC) to refer to the virtual experience of seeing a live opera on a big screen in high definition. The Met’s project is assessed with respect to the conventions that govern theatre, broadcast television, and cinema, and with reference to how it both enhances and compromises the traditional concert-going experience.Résumé : Lors de la saison 2006-2007, le Metropolitan Opera de New York a commencé à diffuser des représentations en direct dans certaines salles de cinéma autour du monde. Cet article explore le phénomène au moyen d’une approche communément appelée la théorie des médias. Celle-ci se fonde sur l’oeuvre de trois analystes spécialisés dans les arts du spectacle et de l’enregistrement : Edmund Carpenter, John Ellis, et James Monaco. L’auteur formule l’expression « cinéma numérique radiodiffusée » pour décrire l’expérience virtuelle de voir un opéra présenté au grand écran en direct et en haute définition. L’auteur évalue ce projet du Met par rapport aux conventions propres au théâtre, à la télévision grand public et au cinéma et aux manières dont le projet parvient à améliorer et à empirer l’expérience traditionnelle d’assister à un concert.

Award ceremony as an arbiter of commerce and canon in the popular music industry

We show how the Grammy award ceremony played a central role in influencing the US popular music industry through two important inter-organisational processes. The ceremony served as the vehicle through which the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) interlinked with commercial interests in the field: the distributors, wholesalers and retailers who are represented by the National Association of Record Merchandisers (NARM). As music became a more visual medium and television coverage of the ceremony became prominent, merchandisers came to rely on the Grammy awards as their sales cue, and began to aggressively promote nominees and winners. As a result of the retailers' selective attention, Grammy award-winners began enjoying greater popular appeal through increased album sales. Second, attempts made by various constituents of NARAS to influence award decisions resulted in the surfacing of, challenges to and, finally, the resolution of occupational conflicts and normative concerns about the legitimacy of genres in the popular music industry. In the process, NARAS succeeded in championing the Grammy awards as the hallmark of peer recognition. We contend that the unique ability of the Grammy awards to mingle both peer and popular recognition makes them a significant arbiter of canon formation in the popular music industry.

The CBC and the Juno Awards

Through a case study of the Juno Awards, this article attempts to enhance what is known about the crisis facing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The CBC worked with the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) on the annual ceremony for the Canadian music industry from the mid-1970s to 2001. An analysis of this time frame gives rise to three arguments about the CBC and the Juno Awards. First, as applied to the Junos, the concept of a promotional state for popular music provides insights into the CBC’s crisis. Second, the role of CARAS points to the possibility that outside control has exacerbated the crisis in the CBC. Third, the CBC’s response to CARAS’ control suggests that the public broadcaster may have contributed to its own crisis. Résumé : Au moyen d’une étude de cas sur les prix Juno, cet article tente d’augmenter ce qu’on sait sur la crise à laquelle le CBC fait face actuellement. Le CBC a collaboré avec l’Académie canadienne des arts et des sciences de l’enregistrement (CARAS) pour diffuser la cérémonie annuelle de remise des prix Juno du milieu des années 70 à 2001. Une analyse de cette période mène à trois observations sur le CBC et les prix Juno. Premièrement, en ce qui a trait aux Juno, l’idée d’un état promotionnel pour la musique populaire aide à comprendre la crise du CBC. Deuxièmement, le rôle joué par CARAS semble indiquer que des contrôles externes ont aggravé la crise au CBC. Troisièmement, la manière dont le CBC a réagi aux contrôles de CARAS suggère que le radiodiffuseur public a peut-être contribué lui-même à aggraver sa crise.