Held annually since 1923, the Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Musicwhich ISCM World New Music Dayswill take place in Auckland and Christchurch (New Zealand) from August 23 to 30, 2022. They were postponed from 2020 to 2022 due to the Covid pandemic. The ISCM World New Music Days 2022 overlap with the Asian Composers League ACL festival, which runs from August 28 to September 2. The local organizers of the double festival, the Composers Association of New Zealand (CANZ) and the ACL, will hold the 2022 festival at the same venues, largely retaining the 2020 program. Switzerland will participate with the work Guarda i lumi will be represented by Esther Flückiger at the ISCM World New Music Days.

The ISCM World New Music Days in Shanghai and Nanning, postponed from 2021 to March 2022 due to corona, have been canceled again due to the Covid pandemic - the city of Shanghai is currently in lockdown - or postponed until further notice. According to the ISCM, details of the postponement date will be announced at a later date. At the ISCM World New Music Days in Shanghai and Nanning, the electroacoustic composition Glass Body programmed by Karin Wetzel.
 

The ISCM defies the corona pandemic. In the absence of concert performance opportunities, it launched the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Serieswhere works by composers from all ISCM sections are presented online twice a week.

The aim of the project is to promote the online presence and coverage of contemporary music via social media, building bridges between the different types of contemporary music being composed and performed in different regions of the world. The works will be documented with recordings and detailed biographies and promoted on the pages and social media channels of the ISCM and its country and local sections.

Due to the current situation, these weeks will focus on works by Ukrainian composers, including Oleksandr Kozarenko, the recently deceased Hanna Havrylets, Olexiy Voytenko, Alla Zagaykevych, Ivan Ostapovych and Julia Gomelskaya.

A total of 126 compositions have been presented since the start of the program. From the Swiss selection of over 40 proposed works, the ISCM jury has so far included 9 works by Swiss composers in the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series selection. These are (in alphabetical order):

Heidi Baader-Nobs – Evasion
Arturo Corrales – Flow
Aglaia Graf – Birth of Gods
Klaus Huber – Tenebrae
Sachie Kobayashi – Les cieux roulent des yeux
Hanspeter Kyburz – Cells
Ulrike Mayer-Spohn – fKFW
Abril Padilla – Grimja
Karin Wetzel – Glass Body

The entire ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series Selection can be found under the following links:
https://iscm.org/iscm-activities/collaborative-events/iscm-virtual-collaborative-series-2020/
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=ISCMSwitzerlandOFFICIAL&set=a.2741059042811093
https://www.facebook.com/international.society.for.contemporary.music

For the selection of Swiss works for the ISCM's Virtual Collaborative Series at the World Music Days, the Swiss ISCM Section (Swiss Society for Contemporary Music / ISCM Switzerland) responsible. David Rossel, Antoine Fachard, Arturo Corrales and Javier Hagen (President) currently serve on its Board of Directors.
 

Picture: ISCM

Current Swiss participation in the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series Selection (from left to right and top to bottom): Heidi Baader-Nobs, Aglaia Graf, Abril Padilla, Klaus Huber, Hanspeter Kyburz, Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, Arturo Corrales, Sachie Kobayashi, Karin Wetzel

It's rare to be able to visit two festivals in one. But this spring not only saw the 36th edition of the Early Music Festivals Zurich The reason for this strange numbering is simple. Two years ago, the beautiful program "Tageszeiten - Jahreszeiten" was lost in the surf of the first corona wave. And since early music does not tend to thrive on the topicality of the day, such a program could easily be postponed until later. However, it would also have been a shame to simply let the cleverly compiled musical passages through the course of the year and day disappear into oblivion, especially as there was a lot of conceptual work behind it.

To get an impression of the diversity of the program, just a few keywords are enough. While the St. Gallen Bach Foundation, for example, led us through Bach's church year with excerpts from various cantatas, Els Biesemans presented Fanny Hensel's magnificent piano cycle on the fortepiano The year. Or Christopher Simpson's cycles The Monthes and The Four Seasons - performed by the Cellini Consort and the Sirius Viols - combined with excerpts from Samuel Pepy's diaries from 1660-1664 and 1665-1669, respectively, spoken by Aaron Hitz. It was even courageous to respond to Vivaldi's hit Quattro Stagioni in the original and instead use the Les Saisons amusantes mentioned adaptation by Nicolas Chédeville. It is details such as these that indicate the value of this festival. Two years ago, the 400th birthday of the composer and nun Isabella Leonarda was taken as an opportunity to draw attention to the important role of female composers in Italian music of the 17th century. Even though this anniversary is now past the statute of limitations, the cause remains justified and, above all, it is still worth getting to know the music of Isabella Leonarda.

For another concert, the postponement turned out to be a "stroke of luck". For the original 32nd edition, the still young Basel vocal ensemble Voces Suaves the program "Times of Day and Seasons in Mantua". Now, two years later, the concert unexpectedly coincides with the ensemble's tenth anniversary. Two years, mind you, in which the career of Voces Suaves really took off despite the pandemic, as the founder, baritone Tobias Wicky, explains on the phone. The festival also benefited from this increased reputation, as the sold-out concert on March 19 at the Helferei Zurich proved. But it also showed where the success comes from.

This begins with the program, which sheds light on a curious aspect of music history. Two politically insignificant Italian principalities, the Mantua of the Gonzagas and the Ferrara of the d'Estes, became centers of music in the 16th century. Small worlds that radiated out into the larger world. The ensemble members responsible for the programs, Dan Dunkelblum and Davide Benetti, combined madrigals by the incomparable Monteverdi with those of his predecessors in Mantua: Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, Salomone Rossi and Giaches de Wert. The ensemble's high regard for the music of the Flemish-born de Wert is particularly striking and is explained by Tobias Wicky, among other things, by the fact that he was one of the first madrigal composers with whom Voces Suaves became involved. Another reason to dedicate an entire CD to him, which will be released in the fall.

The ensemble is therefore characterized by a certain loyalty that also proves itself musically. The familiarity that has developed between the eight singers over the ten years they have worked together was palpable and audible during the concert; the voices blended perfectly, even though two members had to be replaced due to illness. The ensemble also takes care to create continuity with the replacements and relies on familiar faces, especially in the intimate genre of madrigals. This familiarity is due to another special feature: the Voces Suaves work without a musical director and develop their interpretations in a quasi-democratic manner. A sometimes nerve-wracking process, but one that Wicky says is worth it.

And it works, not least because the cooperation with other ensembles constantly provides impulses from outside. The collaboration with the Capricornus Consort Basel, for example, has proved its worth. Also heavily reshuffled due to illness, under the leadership of Peter Barczi, it provided congenial accompaniment to the various madrigals and demonstrated the energy of the music of this period in the purely instrumental sonatas. However, Tobias Wicky considers the collaboration with festivals to be extremely important, without which it would be impossible for an ensemble like his to manage larger projects. And cites Monteverdi's Marian Vesperswhich will be performed by the Voces Suaves at the 37th Festival Alte Musik Zürich this fall.

If she had a time machine, Dela Hüttner would travel back to the 1930s and 1940s. First and foremost to experience the heyday of swing live, as the singer revealed in an interview. This fondness for the genre is even reflected in the name of her band: SwingThing. On his album branches the quintet from Baden and Zurich focuses not least on the dialog between Hüttner's elastic vocals, Adrian Mira's multifaceted clarinet playing and Thomas Goralski's piano.

Although swing serves as the band's reference and starting point, they are only too happy - and with verve - to swarm out into other jazz variants, klezmer or even folk. SwingThing prefer to move like bees: sometimes they feast on chanson, sometimes on balladesque jazz. And in between, they even indulge in the influences of literary greats such as Emily Dickinson or Paul Verlaine.

The song from the repertoire of Josephine Baker Mayari begins with a lascivious cabaret sound, but soon turns to French vocals with a thickly applied accent and shortly afterwards sprinkles in a bluesy guitar solo. Meanwhile I'm Nobody at Duke Ellington's Five o'Clock Drag serves, Dela Hüttner's Quiet Love initially as a bedtime song, only to increasingly turn out to be a melancholy serenade.

The ten tracks in total are like a continuous look into a kaleidoscope: a slight twist and the result is a change. SwingThing not only succeeds in bringing their music into a natural flow, but also in constantly driving it forward and developing it further. This results in a release that is visibly captivating. Branches is less convincing with offensive means and instead with sophisticated arrangements, subtle grooves and a musicality that is imbued with power and warmth at the same time.

Swing Thing: Branches. Dela Hüttner, vocals; Adrian Mira, clarinet; Mischa Frey, double bass; Samir Böhringer, drums; Thomas Goralski, hammond/piano; Mario Mauz, guitar. Ship of Fools NAR 2020152

The album bears the characteristic title continuein other words, the opposite of standing still, and that is a good thing. Keller's music has developed continuously over the years. The eight pieces show different facets. In hurry up and wait for example, the virtuoso violinist (Egidius Streiff), supported by the composer's live electronics, enters into a stop-and-go process. Energies pull forward and are stopped again. Perhaps this is an appropriate (and sonically very distinctive) image for our era. Another central work, a highlight of this CD, speaks to something similar: the sextet stand still, climb up, improvisewhich develops both surprisingly and logically and contains improvisational forms. Thus one encounters some essential aspects of Keller's music again here - including free improvisation, which is represented by a short excerpt from a WiM concert with trombonist Günter Heinz. Max E. Keller was one of the first Swiss free jazz musicians in the 1960s and could be heard at the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1968, for example.

The CD contains chamber music from flute solo to septet. The compilation is supplemented by "autobiographical sketches" in which Keller recounts the stages of his life. This also reveals the Keller that is missing on the new CD: the offensively political composer. He has repeatedly exposed himself on social issues in his works. Has he withdrawn from this in the meantime? Or is there not something of a critical stance in the unwieldiness of certain moments that rejects beautiful sound? An example of this is the duo Dialogue - Unity - Contrast for flute and guitar, which attempts to create an almost musical interplay from set pieces, but repeatedly breaks out of this. Keller's music often arises from such contrasts. He needs the counterpart.

Max E. Keller: continue. Egidius Streiff, violin; Evgeniya Spalinger, flute; Marisa Minder, guitar, Ensemble via nova; Ensemble Horizonte, Ensemble Aventure a.o. Streiffzug SC2101

Beat Fehlmann was born in Aarau in 1974, lives partly in Basel and took over the directorship of the Staatsphilharmonie in September 2018 after working in Graubünden and Constance, among other places.

According to the jury, Beat Fehlmann has developed the orchestra in Ludwigshafen into an innovative location with his efforts to increase diversity, his focus on the topic of "music and health", live streams using 360-degree camera technology and, above all, his efforts to attract new audiences.

The DOV has been awarding its Culture Prize every three years since 1979 to individuals who have rendered outstanding services to orchestras and radio ensembles. Among those honored are NRW Minister of Culture Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen, Gewandhaus conductor Kurt Masur and Lothar Späth, then Minister President of Baden-Württemberg.

Born in 2002, Joël Geniet studied with distinction at the Conservatoire Régional de Montpellier until 2017. In 2019, he was admitted to the bachelor's program in the class of Antonio Meneses at the Bern University of the Arts.

Jeunesses Musicales Belgrade was founded in 1954 and has been a member of Jeunesses Musicales International - JMI, based in Brussels, since 1962. Since 1974 they have been a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions - WFIMC, based in Geneva. They organize an annual competition for different instruments.

The laudatory speech honors Tina Turner for her "unique musical and artistic life's work". She has successfully asserted herself as a woman in a previously male-dominated field, broken through established boundaries and stereotypes with her artistic work and touched many people with her authenticity and artistic charisma. Turner, the laudation continued, has shown an exemplary way out of multiple discriminatory circumstances with her art and is therefore a role model across generations, social classes and educational backgrounds.

Tina Turner was a member of the duo Ike and Tina Turner from 1960 to 1976, which had a lasting impact on rock history. From the early 1980s, she pursued an internationally successful solo career as a singer and later also as an actress.

This represents an increase of 18.5 percent compared to the previous year, as the International Federation of the Music Industry IFPI, the umbrella organization of the German Music Industry Association (BVMI), announced in London when it published its annual Global Music Report.

Revenue from paid streaming subscriptions, which increased by 21.9% to USD 12.3 billion, played a significant role in this development. At the end of 2021, there were a total of 523 million paid subscriptions. Streaming as a whole, i.e. paid and ad-financed access, grew by 24.3% to USD 16.9 billion, which corresponds to 65% of global industry revenue.

However, growth in physical formats (up 16.1%) and performance rights (up 4%) also contributed to this development. Germany remains in fourth place in the ranking of global music markets after the USA, Japan and the UK.

The Russian-French artist Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979) is considered a pioneer of microtones. Over two days at the Dampfzentrale Bern, Susanne Huber and André Thomet will contrast his works with world premieres of compositions commissioned from the three young female composers Anda Kryeziu, Eleni Ralli and Elnaz Seyedi, as well as compositions by Georg Friedrich Haas, Edu Haubensak, Bruce Mather and Pascale Criton. The four concerts will be complemented by discussions in which contemporary witnesses will also have their say. Barbara Barthelmes and Roman Brotbeck will speak and moderate, while the American writer Paul Auster, who was the first to recognize Wyschnegradsky in The Locked Room is brought in directly from New York for a nocturne.

Today, music schools are mainly attended by children (47%) and young people (29%). In contrast, self-employed music teachers mainly teach people over the age of 20 (63%). Adults are also the largest group in (wind) orchestras (71%) and choirs (70%). In the latter, the high proportion of senior citizens (30 percent) is striking.

According to the study, music learning programs are mainly financed by course fees and membership fees from learners (42 percent on average) and annual contributions from the public sector (27 percent on average).

In addition to this type of funding, the small-scale nature of the sector and a high proportion of multiple part-time jobs are among its special characteristics. For example, two-fifths of the survey participants work both as music teachers at a music school and as freelance musicians. 72 percent of music schools state that they work closely with an elementary school.

More info:
https://www.hslu.ch/de-ch/hochschule-luzern/ueber-uns/medien/medienmitteilungen/2022/03/18/studie-musiklernen-schweiz/

The Swiss Jazz Days is a new networking and scene event that, according to the program, focuses on current topics in the national and international music industry. The two-day event, which took place for the first time in Bern at the end of February, also served to "develop ideas and strategies together in order to meet common challenges".

The Swiss Jazz Days were initiated by Simon Petermann and Christoph Jenny in particular. "I had the 'aha' moment back in 2015. At the Jazzahead trade fair in Bremen, I realized what I was missing in Switzerland - the feeling of being part of a scene," recalls Petermann. The musical director of the Fischermann Orchestra and broadcaster at Radio RaBe therefore set about developing an event "by the jazz scene for the jazz scene" together with his partner Christoph Jenny in 2020. It quickly became apparent that such an event would not only meet with lively interest, but could also be financed.

The 1st Swiss Jazz Days not only offered workshops such as "Social Media & Digital Communication" and "Media Promotion for Musicians", but also concerts and discussion panels - for example on the topic of entrepreneurship in jazz or the "Opportunities of an umbrella campaign in Swiss jazz". According to moderator Milena Krstic, the panel "Sustainable promotion strategies" focused on ecological aspects. Lea Heimann, who is responsible for booking, fundraising and mediation at the Bernese jazz club Bee-Flat, explained that everyone is actually still in a learning process in this regard. The head of Popkredit Zurich, Niklaus Riegg, on the other hand, emphasized: "I have a mixed relationship with so-called green booking." Although it is absolutely right that the festivals are making efforts to become increasingly "greener", the responsibility for this should not be delegated to the musicians.

Presenter Krstic, herself a musician, talked about her own efforts to travel by plane as little as possible, both privately and professionally. She pointed out: "If you really want to be successful as a musician, you almost can't avoid flying around a lot." A statement that Riegg supplemented with the realization that the local jazz scene offers its protagonists too few performance opportunities: "As a Swiss jazz musician, you are more or less forced to tour abroad." Although the train has proven to be a good alternative to the plane within Europe, the distances involved should not be underestimated, as an example cited by Lea Herrmann illustrates: when booking a concert, she asked the performers to travel by train. This meant that the musicians from Sicily had to travel for 21 hours and were correspondingly exhausted on stage. An earlier journey, including an additional overnight stay, would have been appropriate for recreational reasons, but there was no budget for this.

The panel participants agreed that better coordination between the organizing Swiss clubs was needed. This could sometimes prevent formations from performing in Madrid today, Basel tomorrow and Barcelona the day after tomorrow, for example. "We need more collaboration and less competition," said Niklaus Riegg. Carine Zuber, director of the Zurich jazz club Moods until last fall, also spoke from the audience. She reported on talks with SBB about a possible Interrail pass for artists. Developments that indicate that the topic is becoming increasingly relevant for the music industry.

And what is Simon Petermann's conclusion after the 1st Swiss Jazz Days? "The start was a success and thanks to the many positive responses, we feel encouraged to hold the event every year in future." In Petermann's view, it would be desirable for the event to attract more organizers and representatives of cultural sponsors, foundations and labels in the future. This time, the 130 or so participants were primarily musicians. Which means that the first goal has already been achieved: to connect jazz musicians with each other.

"We are very open about how the Swiss Jazz Days should continue," Petermann states. In order to feel the pulse of the jazz scene even better in future, he and Christoph Jenny have set themselves the fixed goal of not holding the event exclusively in the federal city. This step should help to counteract the fragmentation of the jazz scene in the best possible way. One thing is particularly important to Petermann: "Collaboration with other scenes is very important to us; we don't close ourselves off to pop or rock."

Karin Mairitsch succeeds Thomas D. Meier, who has held the position since 2009 and will step down at the end of September. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She completed her doctorate at the University of Art and Design Linz on the subject of study program development and educational policy objectives.

From 2003 to 2018, she held various management positions at universities, including the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

She also works as a freelance artist, curator, lecturer and author. Karin Mairitsch is currently head of the city of Rüsselsheim's own company Kultur123 with its Culture & Theater, Adult Education Centre, Music School and Public Library departments. 

With around 2100 Bachelor's and Master's students, Zurich University of the Arts is one of the leading art universities in Europe. The study and research program covers the fields of art education, design, film, fine arts, music, dance, theater and transdisciplinarity.

The ZHdK is currently converting its range of courses to the major-minor model. From fall 2023/24, the ZHdK will be the first art academy in Europe to enable its students to combine courses from different disciplines in their studies.

The delegates of the Swiss Yodelling Association (EJV) have awarded the Northwestern Switzerland sub-association the right to host the event in 2026. This takes place outside of the regular 15-year cycle of the sub-associations, as the Bernese Cantonal Yodelling Association is foregoing the 2026 event in favor of the cancelled festival in Basel.

The date of the 33rd Federal Yodelling Festival Basel 2026 has not yet been set, but experience shows that it will take place over three days on a weekend at the end of June or beginning of July 2026. Around 10,000 active yodelers, alphorn players and other musicians will take part in this major event for traditional Swiss customs in Basel.
-The event is also expected to attract around 150,000 visitors.

The organizing committee will be put together at a later date, although the majority of the OC members are already volunteering for the 2026 event. The office will again be managed by Basel Tattoo Productions GmbH. The Federal Yodelling Festival takes place in a different part of the country every three years. It will be held in Zug in 2023.

Choirmaster Roger Widmer let the last notes fade away for an almost provocatively long time, only slowly lowering his hands one after the other, forcing silence. Or rather, he prevented the well-deserved applause from immediately wiping away the deep impression that Bohuslav Martinů's Field fair at the end of a courageous and unfortunately incredibly topical program.

The program was courageous in several respects. The pieces that the Zurich Male Choir and the Stadtharmonie Oerlikon-Seebach undertook were not easy. Although they are not among the most technically advanced compositions of the musically turbulent 30 years between 1914 and 1943, the stormy development of the musical language of the time is nevertheless palpable in them. The frequent dissonances in particular, which can certainly be associated with pain in the context of the common theme, presented the choir with a number of challenges. This was most clearly recognizable in Kurt Weill's Berlin Requiem from 1928 based on texts by Bertolt Brecht. However, despite some uncertainties, the choir and ensemble managed to present the indictment against warmongers, as the work could be summarized, in a powerful way.

The two soloists Matthias Aeberhard and Robert Koller, who had stepped in at short notice for Marc Olivier Oetterli, naturally played their part in this. Tenor Aeberhard in particular lent the cynical ballad Marterl the vocal mellifluousness which, in combination with the laconic account of atrocities committed, gave the piece its repulsive effect.

The Berlin Requiem is a work that uses linguistic and musical drasticness to shake things up, to make a difference. Despite perhaps differing compositional means, it was not alone in this concert, on the contrary. All of the works reported on the devastation caused by violence and thus presented the audience with challenges that should not be underestimated. There was no sunshine after the rain, no winter storm gave way to a merry moon. However, the cleverly put together program did not leave you despairing in the darkness, but at least allowed you a few rays of hope.

Gustav Holst's song sung at the beginning shimmers with A Dirge for Two Veterans (A dirge for two veterans) ghostly between mourning and the pomp of a solemn procession. The work, composed in 1914, thus precisely reflects the mixture of naïve enthusiasm for the war and justified fear that prevailed at the beginning of the First World War. And Benjamin Britten's 1943 composition Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard ends after Lord Barnard's murder of his wife and her lover not with sounds of horror, but in the light tones of the lord's realization, whose calming pulse enables him to understand that he has committed an injustice. Only Samuel Barber's A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map, 1940) remains in silent, infinite grief over the loss of his comrade.

The date of the concert, March 12 in the Tonhalle Zurich, was also courageous. For choirs in particular, planning performances is still a risky business despite the easing of coronavirus measures. And when the date was set, the signals for opening up were not yet clear. At that time, it was even harder to imagine how close the war theme of this program would have come to us. What was perhaps planned as a look back at difficult times, as an indication that there are worse things than corona measures, suddenly became a commentary on events in the here and now, 1500 kilometers away from Zurich.

It's a damned thing: you always hope that a concert will be more than just the mere reproduction of sounds. That somehow a bridge would be built between the music and our lives. And when it happens, you don't really want to be happy about it. At least on this evening, with this subject matter. But in the end, fortunately, the music had the last word.

On the one hand, because Martinůs Field fair is a work that must be heard. Unrestrained in anger and strong even when looking back wistfully. A furor that culminates in the accusing question "O Lord, are you asleep?" and yet finds comforting confidence afterwards.

Secondly, because everyone involved was on top form here. The choir radiated the confidence that had been lacking at times in Weill's work, the ensemble under the tonal leadership of Andreas Gohl-Alvera on the piano and Mark Richli on the harmonium commented attentively and sharply. And baritone Robert Koller proved that he can not only sing, but also has a distinct acting talent. The visibly moved audience would probably not have needed Roger Widmer's skillful applause delay - they would probably have had to take a deep breath before clapping.

In line with the pandemic situation, a hybrid format was chosen. The on-site event was simultaneously broadcast online, three speakers were connected and discussion was possible among all participants, whether they were physically or virtually present.

The main title of the conference already specifically identifies its conceptual center: the rabab, an early string instrument played in medieval Europe until 1300, which is now largely lost to the European music tradition. Its reintegration into historical performance practice within early music is one of the main concerns of the interdisciplinary research project based at the HKB and supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation "Rabab & Rebec. Research into fur-covered string instruments of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and their reconstruction". The first project conference was able to contribute to this goal with a broad contextualization of the numerous textual, visual and ethnomusicological sources - not least by explicitly locating the string instrument in its Arabic-Islamic past and present, as stated in the conference's subtitle.

To this end, the speakers from various disciplines presented a broad spectrum of interconnected issues from often overlapping fields of research in a total of 15 lectures: historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music practice, music iconography, art history and linguistics. It ranged from the etymology of the term, the distribution channels and the functional context of the instrument as well as its practical playing and tonal characteristics to its pictorial representations in art and the current practice of the North African Andalusi-music.

The conference was opened by Thomas Gartmann (Bern), project manager and head of research at the HKB, who introduced project manager Thilo Hirsch (Bern) as the spiritus rector of the research project and the conference. After his introduction to the topic, one section was devoted to the Arabic-Islamic origins of the Rabab, which, in the absence of surviving original instruments, must be reconstructed from the basic textual sources. From the point of view of a musical translatio studiorum Anas Ghrab (Sousse) began by giving an overview of these textual sources and the mechanisms of such a transfer of knowledge across space and time. Salah Eddin Maraqa (Freiburg) impressively demonstrated that philological detective work is required where a term essentially shapes the conception of an instrument. He presented new findings on the etymology of the term on the basis of extensive critical source studies Rabābwhile Ioana Baalbaki (Târgu Mureș) is the position of the Rabāb within the music theory of the time on the basis of al-Fārābī's "Great Book of Music", the Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-kabīr.

Al-Fārābī is also the one who created the Rabāb The monochord was first explicitly mentioned as a bowed stringed instrument in the 10th century, which is why Laura de Castellet (Barcelona) focused on the use of the string bow and its distribution channels alongside the characteristic vertical playing position in the section on textual and pictorial sources used for music practice and theory. Saskia Quené (Bern), on the other hand, located schematic representations of the monochord within music theory with an art-scientific approach as part of cosmological harmony theory, thus recalling that music, according to the medieval view, belonged to the quadrivium of the Artes liberales belonged to.

Methodologically oriented round-table discussions rounded off the varied program on both days by thematically following on from the last lecture. On the first day, this was a joint lecture by Thilo Hirsch (Bern) and Marina Haiduk (Bern), who presented the draft of a methodological-practical guideline for the reconstruction of lost musical instruments. Their proposal was designed as a critical counter-proposal to the common practice of unquestioningly adopting morphological features from pictorial representations. How this uncertain basis can be used for the purpose of practical instrument reconstruction was discussed controversially in the field of tension between music iconography, organology and art history, first in the three co-presentations by Antonio Baldassarre (Lucerne), Theresa Holler (Bern) and Karolina Zgraja (Zurich), and then in the subsequent round table. By its very nature, the negotiation process could not be conclusively clarified. However, the identification of problem areas and interdisciplinary dialog were identified as prerequisites for the development of fruitful perspectives, where the interpretative sovereignty of one's own discipline can be set aside in favour of a necessary exchange.

The second day began with a lecture by project collaborator Marina Haiduk, who presented a selection of depictions of vertically held small stringed instruments from the 11th to 13th centuries and examined their geographical distribution and functional context, whereby their occurrence in a few subjects was conspicuous. Thilo Hirsch analyzed the Rabab depictions in the Cantigas de Santa MaríaThese manuscripts from the circle of Alfonso X provide information about the types of European rababs with fur covers that were widespread on the Iberian Peninsula in the 13th century. The rabab, reconstructed from one of Hirsch's miniatures, was presented to the public for the first time and questioned about its practical use in music.

The following two sections, chaired by Martin Kirnbauer (Basel) and Britta Sweers (Bern), were dedicated to the Rabāb as part of musical practice in contemporary North Africa and its recent past (Mohamed Khalifa, France, and Anis Klibi, Tunis). Amedeo Fera (Leuven) and Vincenzo Piazzetta (Lamezia Terme) presented the bowed Calabrian lyre and its Byzantine origins, focusing on the relationship between the instruments. The two subsequent lectures focused on plucked instruments with skin covers: Emin Soydaş (Çankırı) examined the Turkish Kopuzwhile Sylvain Roy (France) played the plucked instruments of the sarinda type to the Afghan Rubāb in relation to each other. The lecture by Ed Emery (London) served as a transition to these ethnomusicological questions, examining both the influence of the music of al-Andalus in the European tradition as well as presenting small string instruments as part of nomadic cultures that can be traced back to the traveling troubadours of the Middle Ages.

Finally, an intradisciplinary dialog between ethnomusicologist Britta Sweers (Bern) and Cristina Urchueguía (Bern), representative of historical musicology, focused on the responsibilities, similarities and differences between the two (sub)disciplines. The questions considered from various perspectives, e.g. on historicity and authenticity, were finally taken as an opportunity to round off the conference with a discussion extended to the plenary session. Finally, in an informal jam session, the Tunisian and Moroccan Rabābs as well as the reconstructions of European string instruments (Rabab and Lyra).