ICTM STUDY GROUP ON MULTIPART MUSIC
Minutes of the 1st General Assembly (Business Meeting)
September 17, 2010
Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy)
The meeting was called to order by the board members Ardian Ahmedaja,
Chairperson, Ankica Petrović and Ignazio Macchiarella, Vice-Chairpersons and
Žanna Pärtlas, Secretary/Treasurer, at 17:00 P.M.
Agenda Item #1. Introduction.
• The Agenda of the General Assembly distributed before to all participants together with the symposium information was presented.
• Ardian Ahmedaja made some introductory remarks reviewing briefly the history of the establishment of the Study Group: the progressive increase of the international interest in collaboration between the specialists in the field of multipart music, the decision to start the negotiations for the establishing of the ICTM SG on Multipart Music made in 2008 at the conference “European Voices II” in Vienna, and the acceptance of the SG on Multipart Music by the
ICTM Board in 2009 after the ICTM World conference in Durban, South Africa.
• About the definition ‘multipart music’: In the process of establishing of the SG there were different opinions concerning the definition ‘multipart music’. At the ICTM Board meeting it was even remarked that in some sense “every kind of music can be multipart music”. Ardian Ahmedaja proposed to continue the debate of the first session of the symposium about the definition. The one used for the purposes of this Study Group is “Multipart music is a music only able to be performed if all parts are present.” This definition was approved without discussion, while it was stressed that the question will remain a subject for further discussions in the coming symposia.
Agenda Item #2. Report of activities.
The head of the Local Organization Committee Ignazio Macchiarella spoke about preparations made for the First Symposium of the Study Group on Multipart Music in Sardinia. He thanked the Dipartimento di Studi Storici Geografici e Artistici of the Università degli Studi di Cagliari and other institutions for the financial and organizational support. He also thanked other members of the Local Organization Committee Paolo Bravi, Marco Lutzu and Sebastiano Pilosu, his students and
especially the singing groups and musicians, which were ready to participate in the concerts and workshops without any compensation. Special thanks went to the local municipalities (Unione dei comuni della Valle del Cedrino) for the support with the organization of workshops and accommodation of the participants of the Symposium in Baronia.
Agenda Item #3. Operating Procedures.
The membership status of participants in Study Group meetings was clarified. The participants were reminded that the ICTM membership is required of all presenters, and while membership in the Study Group is not strictly enforced, it is strongly recommended.
Agenda Item #4. Study Group meeting at the ICTM World Conference in St. Johns, Canada, July 2011.
It was announced that the Study Group will hold a General Assembly at the ICTM World Conference in St. Johns, Canada, in July 2011.
Agenda Item #5. The forthcoming Study Group meeting.
The Study Group symposia are organized every two years, so the next one would be in 2012. The place has not been chosen yet. The discussion about the themes, time and place of the forthcoming meeting followed.
The suggestions concerning the themes of the next meeting:
• Multipart music in the religious practices (Ankica Petrović)
• Multipart music practices outside Europe (Joseph Jordania)
• How people learn polyphonic parts (Massimo Privitera)
• The transmission of multipart music (Ignazio Macchiarella)
There could be two or three topics at the next meeting (Ardian Ahmedaja). This suggestion was supported by the participants.
The suggestions concerning the place of the next symposia:
• Croatia (Ankica Petrović)
• Somewhere out of Europe to draw attention to the multipart music practices in non-European regions (Joseph Jordania)
• Ardian Ahmedaja remarked that every suggestion is welcome, anyhow the place will depend from the invitation we become. In any case we have one year to decide for the place of the next meeting.
In regard to the time of the meeting, it was asked if September is convenient time for the SG meetings. Žanna Pärtlas remarked that it is too close to the usual time of the ESEM conferences. Susanne Ziegler said that it also coincides with the Symposia on Traditional Polyphony in Georgia (the second part of September or the beginning of October in even years) and proposed to combine the meetings of the SG and the Georgian Symposia. Joseph Jordania responded that such a combining would be difficult because the Georgian Symposia on Traditional Polyphony never limit the topics of the papers and suggested to move the SG meetings to the odd years.
Ardian Ahmedaja asked the participants of the Symposium to write to him about their further suggestions concerning the themes and the place for next meeting of the SG before the ICTM World Conference in St. Johns (July 2011).
Agenda Item #6. Diversa.
• An election of the Board of the SG usually takes place every four years. So elections will be carried out during the forthcoming SG meeting in 2012.
• There was a discussion about the discipline and order of the symposium which has ended with the agreement that 20 minutes for paper presentations followed by 10 minutes for discussion is the international standard that can not be changed.
• Ignazio Macchiarella proposed to continue with the website of the SG, which was created by him and his students before the symposium, and addressed to the participants an appeal to send him news to be published on the website.
The kind of news he would be waiting for are new books and other publications, CDs, DVDs, dissertations (both Master’s and PhD), Radio and TV programs, grants related to research of multipart music, conferences, internet links etc. Ignazio Macchiarella proposed to change the homepage so that there would be two sections: News and Archives (excerpts of multipart music, photos, videos). This work would continue at first for two years, until the next Symposium.
Agenda Item #7. Publication of the proceedings of the Sardinia 2010 Symposium. It was announced that the proceedings of the Symposium will be published. The selected papers would be published in a book. It is also possible to put all papers on the website. It was suggested that the editor of the book would be the local organizer of the SG Symposium. This time it is Ignazio Macchiarella. The publication will be peer-reviewed. Ignazio Macchiarella suggested that sound and video examples could also be available in the Internet by means of the password given in the book, if the book with CD and/or DVD would be too expensive to publish.
In the course of the discussion, there were other suggestions concerning the form of publication: to publish all proceedings; to publish a CD-book with PDF files of the full papers and all kinds of examples (sound, video etc.) and print only the abstracts.
Finally the agreement was achieved that peer review is necessary. The detailed information about the publication would be send soon to the participants of the symposium by the editor.
The Assembly ended at 18:30 P.M.
Žanna Pärtlas
