Report on the 4th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music
4-7 July 2016, Singapore
The 4th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music took place in Singapore in July 4-7, 2016. This was the first symposium of the Study Group far from Europe, where the previous symposia had taken place. Singapore, as a particular country, and the library@esplanade as particular place in the heart of such a vibrant city, offered most helpful conditions for work.
The choice of the place and the enjoyable stay in Singapore were made possible by a very professional local organising team. I want to express here my deepest gratitude to its members and in particular to Larry Francis Hilarian and Joy Khau for their tireless efforts!
The presentations, the vivid discussions and the variety of the viewpoints on each issue have been a particularly enriching experience.
The rich social program with performances of such diverse musical practices from Singapore and the variety of its cuisine we could enjoy enabled us to learn a lot about the diversity of the country. Impressions, prepared by the local organisers, will be soon online at the websites of the Study Group: www.multipartmusic.org and http://www.ictmusic.org/group/multipart-music. At this point a special thank goes to Ignazio Macchiarella, who is taking care of both websites!
During the symposium the last publications of the Study Group could also be presented. The proceedings of the previous symposium of the Study Group, held in Budapest 2013, are issued there in 2015, while the peer-reviewed publication of the First Seminar of the Study Group, held in Tallinn in 2014, will appear in October 2016 at Res Musica (http://www.ema.edu.ee/teadus/res-musica/). Details about these and previous publications of the Study Group are to be found in the above mentioned websites.
The Institute of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology was represented by Ulrich Morgenstern, with a paper about multipart music as social interaction in Russian ethnomusicology, and the Study Group Chair Ardian Ahmedaja with a paper on analytical representations of time, sound and structure in local music performances in Albania.
Ardian Ahmedaja
