Report of the Inaugural Meeting (2006)

• Organization
• Projects
• Communication
• Speakers
• Participants
• Not In Attendance
• Meeting Photos
• Attached files 

During the VIIth Seminar titled "Le musiche dei Greci: passato e presente. Valorizzazione di un patrimonio culturale" which was held in Ravenna on the 30th and 31st of October of this year, the International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage was re-established.
The attendance at the first meeting of the reborn Society was numerous and enthusiastic, as you can see from the list of participants enclosed in the present letter, and the discussion of its future developments was rich in stimulating proposals, summarized below. On that occasion there were also two musical performances, one by Stefan Hagel and S. Psaroudakes-who played and sang ancient Greek music with reconstructed musical instruments-and one organized by A. Scalfaro in cooperation with the PhD programme in Musicology and Musical Heritage of the Alma mater studiorum (the University of Bologna), within the cycle entitled "Greece and the XXth Century".
The roundtable devoted to the re-establishment of the Society, chaired on Monday afternoon by G. M. Rispoli and on Tuesday morning by A. Barker, was divided into three themes: organization, projects, and communication.

Organization

Andrew Barker recalled why and how, at the beginning of the 90's, he had the idea of bringing together all the people who had any sort of interest in ancient Greek and Roman music, and of publishing two numbers of the journal Skutala Moisan, which listed the Society's members, their institutions, publications, and projects. As honorary president of the reborn Society, he suggested that we should reconfirm the current organizing committee (constituted by himself, Alan C. Bowen, David Creese, Donatella Restani, and Eleonora Rocconi) up to the first official elections, which will be held in December 2007.
Moreover, the assembly discussed the amount of the subscription fees to be paid by the members (50 euros for ordinary members, 25 euros for students). It will soon be possible to pay the fee online through the new website. The old website, which is presently hosted by the institutional office of the Society (the Department of History and Methods for Cultural Heritage at the University of Bologna's Head Office in Ravenna), will soon be revised by A. C. Bowen and D. Creese and moved to a server of the University of Toronto Libraries. On the new website it will be possible in due course to consult the Society's bylaws as well as the bibliographical database De musicis. Moreover a discussion list, which D. Creese will manage, will soon be activated so that the Executive Board and members of the Society may share any news (e.g., about editorial publications, conferences, and so on) concerning our common interests.

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Projects

D. Castaldo described the cataloguing of the archaeological finds of ancient musical instruments in the Mediterranean area, which will be mounted and updated on the Society's new website.

A. Camerotto described research on the semiotic powers of dissonance in the ancient world, according to a perspective of music conceived as an organic system of communication to imagine and represent the real world.

A. Meriani drew attention to a study of musical "pleasure", that is, of the cultural roots of musical aesthetics, and announced his plan to present this study in a miscellaneous publication, a conference, or a series of thematic seminars.

M. C. Martinelli described the Study Group on Music in Ancient Greece (http://www.sns.it/it/laboratori/laboratorilettere/musica), which has been active since 2001 at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and its proposed series of books on the topic within the collection "Convegni" of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, beginning with the proceedings of the recent conference entitled La Musa dimenticata. Aspetti dell'esperienza musicale greca in età ellenistica, Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 21-23 settembre 2006.

Concerning the enlargement of such a project, S. Psaroudakes suggested the possibility of producing handbooks for students.
G. Mosconi proposed the further development of the online bibliography called De musicis concerning the music of ancient civilizations (currently at http://www.dismec.unibo.it/musichegreci/demusicis/demusicisnuovo.htm), through the enlargement of the editorial board, and the active cooperation of all the scholars of the Society. He asks everyone to give him notice of their own publications by sending an e-mail to the following address: gian...@hotmail.com.

E. Pöhlmann proposed a new collection of fragments with musical notation, and advocated their supplementation by scholarly hypotheses made according to scientific criteria and explained in a commentary useful for didactic purposes. One aim of this collection is to counteract the evident lack of scientific rigour in existing reconstructions of ancient music.

D. Restani described an international conference entitled "Moisa Epikhorios: Regional Music and Musical Regions", which is to be part of a project directed by B. Kowalzig (with the cooperation of F. Lissarrague and P. Wilson) and held in Ravenna during the last week of September 2008, as the VIIIth Seminar "Le musiche dei Greci: passato e presente. Valorizzazione di un patrimonio culturale".

P. Vlagopoulos announced the summer seminars organized by the University of Corfù every year in July, about which the Society will promptly inform the members. He presented the new book by E. Pöhlmann, Greek music in the context of ancient poetry, in which he has collected and edited the lectures given by Pöhlmann at that University.

L. Zanoncelli emphasized the need to start common projects, for instance the study of some significant concepts of Greek musical theory and the development of their reception in Medieval and Renaissance times.

Communication

Part of the meeting was devoted to illustrating the potential relations of the Society with other international research groups, especially in musicological and archaeological areas.

S. Hagel and S. Psaroudakes presented the activities and the publications of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology (ISGMA).

N. Guidobaldi introduced the Study Group for Musical Iconography in European Art (http://www.dismec.unibo.it/immaginimusica) of the International Musicological Society (IMS).

A. C. Fariselli outlined a project for the study of music and dance in a Phoenician-Punic context, as an example of a research area up to now neglected which could find a place among the interdisciplinary activities of the Society.

G. M. Rispoli suggested that the Society investigate the possibility of securing financial support from European projects and agencies.

Speakers

Participants

Not in Attendance  

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