ABSTRACT
In 2006, John Bale and I organized a conference at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, on the theme of sport and music. To be honest, as we posted a call for papers, we had little idea of what to expect by way of response. We were aware that a relatively small number of scholars had addressed interrelationships of sport and music in a handful of articles spread across various disciplinary journals, but wondered if there was enough academic interest in such connections to merit a conference of this nature. Our fears, however, were unfounded. We were able to host a two-day event with a range of fascinating papers (one including a live musical performance) on an array of themes from the uses of music to enhance athletic performance to the singing of ‘Abide By Me’ at the FA Cup Final and the Olympic revivalism of the eighteenth-century opera librettist Pietro Metastasio. The papers were subsequently written up by each of the speakers and published by Routledge as Sporting Sounds: Relationships Between Sport and Music.
