International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

A Non-Governmental Organization in Formal Consultative Relations with UNESCO

List of ICTMD World Conferences

IFMC/ICTM/ICTMD World Conferences have been held since 1948. They have also been called General Conferences, Congresses, International Conferences, or simply Conferences. Although originally held annually, they are presently biennial. World Conferences are the main scholarly gathering of ICTMD members, encouraging the international exchange of ideas. Information on World Conferences will continue to be collected and will be added here in due course.

If you have any corrections or additional information, or would like to assist the Secretariat in obtaining such information, please contact the Secretariat.

47th ICTM Conference, 13-19 July 2023

  • Location: Legon, Ghana
  • Host institutionUniversity of Ghana, Legon
  • Conference themes
    1. African Music and Dance: Past, Present, and Future Approaches to Research
    2. Decolonization in Music and Dance Studies
    3. Music, Dance, and Well-Being: Impacts from and Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic
    4. Gender and Sexuality in Global Music and Dance
    5. Popular Music, Dance, and Activism
    6. Conflict and Peace-Making through Music and Dance
    7. Exploring the Materials of Music and Dance: Instruments, Bodies, Technologies
    8. New Research
  • Co-Chairs of Programme Committee: Marie Agatha Ozah, Brian Diettrich
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Daniel K Avorgbedor
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload

46th ICTM Conference, 21-27 July 2022

  • Location: Lisbon, Portugal
  • Host institution: Institute for Ethnomusicology (INET-md), New University of Lisbon
  • Conference themes
    1. Engaging Global Health and Climate Crises through Music and Dance
    2. Dance, Music, and Human Rights: Coexistence and Inequalities in the Contemporary World
    3. Approaches to Archival Practices
    4. Connected Communities: Ocean Trajectories and Land Routes
    5. Music and Dance Cosmopolitanisms
    6. Music and Dance Industries
    7. New Research on Other Topics
  • Co-Chairs of Programme Committee: Susana Sardo, Kati Szego
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: João Soeiro de Carvalho
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload
  • Videowatch on YouTube

45th ICTM Conference, 11-17 July 2019

  • Location: Bangkok, Thailand
  • Host institution: Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University
  • Conference themes
    1. Transborder Flows and Movements
    2. Music, Dance, and Sustainable Development
    3. The Globalization and Localization of Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology
    4. Music and Dance as Expressive Communication
    5. Approaches to Practice-Based Research and its Applications
    6. New Research on Other Topics
  • Co-Chairs of Programme Committee: Tan Sooi Beng, Keith Howard
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Bussakorn Binson
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload
  • Video: watch on YouTube

44th ICTM Conference, 13-19 July 2017

  • Location: Limerick, Ireland
  • Host institution: Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick
  • Conference themes
    1. 70 Years of ICTM: Past, Present and Future
    2. Legacy and Imagination in Music and Dance
    3. Ethnomusicology, Ethnochoreology and Digital Humanities
    4. Exploring Music Analysis and Movement Analysis in Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology
    5. Music, Dance, Religious Politics and Religious Policies
    6. New Research on Other Topics
  • Co-Chairs of Programme Committee: Mohd Anis Md Nor, Stephen Wild
  • Co-Chairs of Local Arrangements Committee: Catherine Foley, Colin Quigley
  • Programmeview online
  • Abstractsdownload
  • Video: watch on YouTube

43rd ICTM Conference, 16-22 July 2015

  • Location: Astana, Kazakhstan
  • Host institution: Kazakh National University of Arts
  • Conference themes
    1. Music and New Political Geographies in the Turkic-speaking World and Beyond
    2. The Creators of Music and Dance
    3. Music, Dance, the Body, and Society
    4. Sound Environments: From Natural and Urban Spaces to Personal Listening
    5. Visual Representation of Music Cultures
    6. New Research
  • Co-Chairs of Programme Committee: Timothy Rice, Razia Sultanova
  • Co-Chairs of Local Arrangements Committee: Aiman Mussakhajayeva, Saida Yelemanova
  • Programme: view online
  • Abstracts: download

42nd ICTM Conference, 11-17 July 2013

  • Location: Shanghai, People's Republic of China
  • Host institution: Shanghai Conservatory of Music
  • Conference themes
    1. Presentation and Representation in Minority Musics and Dance
    2. Rethinking, Reconstructing, and Reinventing Musical Pasts
    3. Ethnomusicology, Ethnochoreology, and Education
    4. Ritual, Religion and the Performing Arts
    5. Screening Music and Dance
    6. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: J. Lawrence Witzleben
  • Co-Chairs of Local Arrangements Committee: Xiao Mei, Yang Yan-di
  • Keynote speaker: Shen Qia
  • Programme: download
  • Abstracts: download
  • Video: watch on YouTube

41st ICTM Conference: 13-19 July 2011

  • Location: St. John's, Canada
  • Host institution: Memorial University of Newfoundland
  • Conference themes
    1. Indigenous Modernities
    2. Cross-cultural Approaches to the Study of the Voice
    3. Rethinking Ethnomusicology through the Gaze of Movement
    4. Atlantic Roots/Routes
    5. Dialogical Knowledge Production and Representation: Implications and Ethics
    6. Acoustic Ecology
    7. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco
  • Co-Chairs of Local Arrangements Committee: Beverley Diamond and Kati Szego
  • Keynote speaker: Michelle Bigenho
  • Programme: download

40th ICTM Conference: 1-8 July 2009

  • Location: Durban, South Africa
  • Host institution: University of KwaZulu-Natal
  • Conference themes
    1. Postcolonialism(s) and the Future for Our Disciplines
    2. Reapproaching the “Popular” and the “Traditional” in the Contemporary World
    3. Festivals, Contests and Competitions
    4. Emotion, Spirituality and Experience
    5. Masculinities in Music and Dance
    6. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Wim van Zanten
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Ntombfikile Mazibuko
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload

39th ICTM Conference: 4-11 July 2007

38th ICTM Conference: 3-10 August 2005

  • Location: Sheffield, UK
  • Host institutionUniversity of Sheffield
  • Conference themes
    1. Music, Dance, and War
    2. Reviving, Reconstructing, and Revitalizing Music and Dance
    3. Applied Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology
    4. Music, Dance, Islam
    5. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Svanibor Pettan
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Jonathan Stock
  • Keynote speakers: Burt Feintuch, John Baily
  • Programmedownload

37th ICTM Conference: 4-11 January 2004

  • Location: Fuzhou & Quanzhou, China
  • Host institution: Fujian Normal University & Quanzhou Normal University
  • Conference themes
    1. Interpretations of Transmission and Change in Traditional Chinese Music
    2. Musical Instruments as Insights on Musical Systems
    3. Interactions of Dancers and Musicians in Performance
    4. Music and Christian Missionization
    5. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Don Niles
  • Co-Chairs of Local Arrangements Committee: Wang Yaohua, Tsao Penyeh
  • Programme: download
  • Abstracts: download

36th ICTM Conference: 4-11 July 2001

  • Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • Host institution: School of Music, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Universidade do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), and Conservatório Brasileiro de Música (CBM)
  • Conference themes
    1. Moving from the Specific to the General and Back Again
    2. Immigrant Music and Dance in Two Directions: To the Americas and From There to the World
    3. Technology, Mass Media, and the Performances of Music and Dance
    4. The Relationships Between Researchers and the Communities They Research
    5. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Anthony Seeger
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Samuel Araújo
  • Keynote speaker: Elton Medeiros
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstracts: download

35th ICTM Conference: 19-25 August 1999

  • Location: Hiroshima, Japan
  • Host institution: ICTM National Committee for Japan, The Society for Research in Asiatic Music, Tôyô Ongaku Gakkai, in cooperation with Hiroshima City University, Hiroshima University, and the Elizabeth Music College
  • Conference themes
    1. Learning Music, Learning Dance
    2. The Musician/Dancer in Asian Society
    3. Asian Music and Dance Research
    4. Music and Peace
    5. Local Transformation of Global Pop
    6. New Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Gerard Béhague
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Tsuge Gen'ichi
  • Keynote speaker: Akashi Yasushi
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload
  • List of participantsdownload

34th ICTM Conference: 25 June - 1 July 1997

  • Location: Nitra, Slovakia
  • Host institution: Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava
  • Conference themes
    1. Music and Dance of Peasant Societies in National and Political Contexts
    2. Music of the World's Cultures in Education
    3. Music and Dance as Identity Markers in Multicultural Societies
    4. Traditional Music, Digital Technology and Electronic Networks
    5. Sound and Image in the Study and Presentation of Traditional Music and Dance
    6. Traditional Music and World Beat
    7. Musical Instruments in the 20th Century
    8. Crossing Boundaries, Redrawing Boundaries in Music
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Wim van Zanten
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Oskár Elschek
  • Keynote speaker: Bruno Nettl
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload

33rd ICTM Conference: 5-11 January 1995

  • Location: Canberra, Australia
  • Host institution: Canberra School of Music, Australian National University
  • Conference themes
    1. Spirituality, Ecology and Performance
    2. New Directions in Music Cognition
    3. Music Histories in Asian and Pacific Regions
    4. Music, Dance and Migration
    5. Indigenous Traditions and the State
    6. Music, Ownership, and Rights
    7. Archives: Purposes and Technologies
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Dieter Christensen
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Stephen Wild
  • Keynote speaker: Catherine Ellis
  • Programme and abstractsdownload
  • List of participantsdownload
  • Leafletdownload

32nd ICTM Conference: 16-22 June 1993

  • Location: Berlin, Germany
  • Host institution: International Institute for Traditional Music
  • Conference themes
    1. Ethnomusicology and Society Today: Power Structures, Environments, Technologies
    2. Ethnomusicology at Home
    3. Music and Dance in a Changing Europe
    4. Other Current Research
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Krister Malm
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Max Peter Baumann
  • Programmedownload
  • Abstractsdownload
  • Additions to programmedownload

31st ICTM Conference: 3-9 July 1991

  • Location: Kowloon, Hong Kong

30th ICTM Conference: 23-30 July 1989

  • Location: Schladming, Austria
  • Host institution: Institute for Ethnomusicology at the University for Music and Theatre Arts at Graz, Austria
  • Conference themes
    1. Analysis of Music and Dance
    2. Traditional Music (Vocal/Instrumental, Dance) and Tourism
    3. Current Research in Traditional Music
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Wolfgang Suppan
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Wolfgang Suppan
  • Programmedownload
  • Open Ceremony bookletdownload

29th ICTM Conference: 30 July - 6 August 1987

  • Location: Berlin, German Democratic Republic

28th ICTM Conference: 30 July - 7 August 1985

  • Location: Stockholm, Sweden, and Helsinki, Finland
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Krister Malm

27th ICTM Conference: 8-15 August 1983

  • Location: New York, USA
  • Host institution: Columbia University
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Adelaida Reyes
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Philip Schuyler

26th IFMC Conference: 25 August - 1 September 1981

  • Location: Seoul, Korea
  • Host institution: Korean Musicological Society, International Cultural Society of Korea
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Hahn Man-Young
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Lee Hye-Ku

25th IFMC Conference: 28 July - 4 August 1979

  • Location: Oslo, Norway

24th IFMC Conference: 13-18 August 1977

  • Location: Honolulu, USA
  • Host institution: University of Hawaii at Manoa
  • Conference themes
    1. Folk Music and Dance in Education and Socialisation
    2. Music: Change, Innovation and Acculturation
    3. Music and Dance in National and Ethnic Identity
    4. The Interrelations Between Folk Music and Other Forms of Music
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Ricardo D. Trimillos

23rd IFMC Conference: 14-21 August 1975

  • Location: Regensburg, Federal Republic of Germany
  • Host institution: University of Regensburg
  • Conference themes
    1. Improvisation: Idea and Practice (Concepts and Realisations)
    2. Musical Instruments and Change (Historical, Social, Aesthetic, Organological)
    3. Recent Trends in the Study of Orally Transmitted Music
  • Chair of Programme Committee: Dieter Christensen

22nd IFMC Conference: 26 July - 1 August 1973

  • Location: Bayonne, France

21st IFMC Conference: 27 August - 3 September 1971

  • Location: Kingston, Jamaica

20th IFMC Conference: 6-13 August 1969

  • Location: Edinburgh, UK

19th IFMC Conference: 28 July - 3 August 1967

  • Location: Ostend, Belgium
  • Programmedownload

18th IFMC Conference: 26 July - 3 August 1966

  • Location: Legon, Accra, Ghana
  • Preliminary noticedownload

17th IFMC Conference: 17-25 August 1964

  • Location: Budapest, Hungary
  • Preliminary noticedownload

16th IFMC Conference: 5-12 August 1963

  • Location: Jerusalem, Israel
  • Programmedownload

15th IFMC Conference: 13-21 July 1962

  • Location: Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia
  • Programmedownload

14th IFMC Conference: 28 Aug - 3 September 1961

13th IFMC Conference: 24-28 July 1960

  • Location: Vienna, Austria
  • Programmedownload

12th IFMC Conference: 11-17 August 1959

  • Location: Sinaia & Bucharest, Romania
  • ProgrammeFrench/Russian

11th IFMC Conference: 28 Jul - 2 August 1958

  • Location: Liège, Belgium
  • Programmedownload

10th IFMC Conference: 22-27 August 1957

  • Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

9th IFMC Conference: 25-31 July 1956

  • Location: Trossingen & Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany
  • Programmedownload

8th IFMC Conference: 29 June - 5 July 1955

  • Location: Oslo, Norway; in conjunction with IFMC's 3rd International Festival of Folk Song and Dance
  • Host institutions: Noregs Ungdomslag and Norsk Folkemuskklag
  • Programmedownload

7th IFMC Conference: 16-22 August 1954

  • Location: São Paulo, Brazil

6th IFMC Conference: 9-15 July 1953

  • Location: Biarritz, France, & Pamplona, Spain; in conjunction with IFMC's 2nd International Festival of Folk Song and Dance
  • Host institution: Syndicat d'Initiatives and town of Biarritz, and Municipality of Pamplona. 
  • Conference themes
    1. Ritual and Ceremonial Dances and Songs
    2. Folk Music (Dance and Song) in Education
    3. The Distinction between "Folk" and "Popular"
  • Preliminary noticedownload

5th IFMC Conference: 14-19 July 1952

  • Location: London, UK.

4th IFMC Conference: 8-14 September 1951

  • Location: Opatija, Yugoslavia; in conjunction with a Festival of Yugoslav Folk Music (Dance, Song, and Instrumental Music)
  • Host institution: Unions of Societies for Culture and Education of Yugoslavia. 
  • Conference themes
    1. The Style and Techinique of Traditional Singers, Dancers, and Instrumentalists: (a) Analysis of the Essential Elements; (b) Their Reproduction in the Revival of Folk Music
    2. Eastern and Western Aspects of European Folk Music
    3. Migration of Folk-Themes (Historical and Geographical)
  • Chair of Local Arrangements Committee: Natko Devčić

3rd IFMC Conference: 17-21 July 1950

  • Location: Bloomington, USA

2nd IFMC Conference: 7-11 September 1949

  • Location: Venice, Italy; in conjunction with the International Folk Music Festival and Congress
  • Host institution: Ente Nazionale Assistenza Lavoratori — Comitato Italiano Arti e Tradizioni Popolari
  • A report on this conference can be found in  Bulletin of the IFMC 2

1st IFMC Conference: 13-18 September 1948