Minutes of the 42nd General Assembly (Kazakh National University of Arts, Astana, Kazakhstan, 18 July 2015)
Held at the Kazakh National University of Arts, Astana, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday 18 July 2015 from 14:30 to 15:30. Chair: Salwa El‐Shawan Castelo-Branco.
The Chair opened the meeting at 14:45, local time.
Apologies for absence
- Castelo-Branco announced the formal apologies for absence submitted by Ursula Hemetek, Dorit Klebe, and Barbara B. Smith.
In memoriam
- Castelo-Branco asked all members to stand in memory of those members of the ICTM community who passed away since the previous General Assembly.
Approval of the minutes of the previous General Assembly
- Castelo-Branco called for a motion to approve the Minutes of the 41st General Assembly, as published in the Bulletin of the ICTM 123 (October 2013). Moved by Ricardo Trimillos, seconded by Gisa Jähnichen, motion passed.
Business arising from the minutes
- No additional business was discussed.
Report of the Executive Board
World Network
- Secretary General Svanibor Pettan started his report by highlighting the growth of the ICTM World Network since the last General Assembly. In those two years, the number of countries and regions with ICTM representatives increased from 87 to 103. He then showed a slide with a list of countries where the Council was not yet represented, and asked the Assembly to think about good candidates in those countries who could become Liaison Officers.
2015 World Conference
- Pettan reported on the three years of combined efforts by the Secretariat, the Executive Board, the Kazakh National University of Arts, and TÜRKSOY, which culminated in the 43rd ICTM World Conference in Astana. He recalled that the Executive Board meetings of July 2014 continued well into the night, due to the commitment of the Board to making the Astana conference a success.
- The importance of special-purpose Executive Board Committees (e.g., 70th Anniversary of ICTM, Bulletin, Colloquia, Sister Societies, Study Groups, among others), an innovation introduced by ICTM President Castelo‐Branco in 2013, was explained.
- The recipients of the Barbara Barnard Smith Travel Award for 2015 were announced: Debanjali Biswas (India), Seola Kim (USA), and Shin En Liao (Taiwan). The Secretary General then highlighted the remarkable success the Council has had in subsidizing the participation of delegates to the conference: 18 individuals thanks to the UNESCO Participation Programme, and 16 thanks to the newly‐created Maud Karpeles and Young Scholar Funds. In total, 34 delegates from Australia, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, France, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Turkey, United Kingdom, and USA had their participation subsidized, the highest number in the history of the Council.
- The importance of having representatives from sister societies (the International Musicological Society, the International Association of Music Libraries, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, the World Dance Alliance, and the International Society for Music Education) at the Conference was noted, signalling a “new direction” in approaching the study of music and dance. He drew attention to the Roundtable “ICTM and Its Sister Societies”, sponsored by RILM, which had taken place on 17 July.
Study Groups
- All the Study Groups which had held symposia since the previous General Assembly were mentioned: Music of the Turkic‐speaking World, Music and Dance of Oceania, Historical Sources of Traditional Music, Performing Arts of Southeast Asia, Mediterranean Music Studies, African Musics, Applied Ethnomusicology, Ethnochoreology, Music and Minorities, Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe, Musics of East Asia, Musical Instruments, Maqām, and Music in the Arab World. Pettan welcomed the two new Study Groups on Audiovisual Ethnomusicology and on Musics of the Slavic World, both of which had had their inaugural symposia in 2014.
- Study Groups were encouraged to display their publications at the Exhibit Area, a first attempt to systematically present publications by ICTM Study Groups to the wider audience that ICTM World Conferences typically attract. Finally, Pettan called attention to the inaugural meeting of Study Group Chairs, which was held the previous afternoon.
Other meetings
- The Secretary General congratulated the organizers of the 23rd ICTM Colloquium “Between Speech and Song: Liminal Utterances” (20-22 May 2015, Nanterre, France) and praised the Joint Symposia organized by neighbouring National Committees (the meeting of the National Committees for Austria, Italy, and Slovenia in Pulfero, Italy, in May 2015, and the meeting of the National Committees for France and the UK in Paris, France in July 2015).
- Finally, Pettan drew attention to the Joint SEM‐ICTM‐ESEM Forum, a “milestone event” which would take place in September 2015 at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance (Limerick, Ireland).
Internet presence
- In the previous two years, the ICTM website was enriched with new content: a new page listing all past ICTM Colloquia, the complete run of the Bulletin of the ICTM and its predecessors (since 1948), and the tables of contents of all issues of the Yearbook for Traditional Music and its predecessors (since 1949).
- The Online Membership Directory had been completely redone (launched in March 2014), and the much-awaited ICTM mailing list (aka “listserv”) had started operations in August 2014. Finally, the ICTM Online Photo Gallery, rich with visual documents of the past and present of the Council, was launched in January 2014.
Publications
- Considering that the General Editor would report on the Yearbook for Traditional Music at a later time, Pettan mentioned that since 2014, the frequency of the Bulletin of the ICTM had been increased to three times a year (adding a new January issue). After drawing attention to a publication resulting from the 21st ICTM Colloquium, the Secretary General asked all Study Group Chairs to consider their publications to be “ICTM publications”, and urged Study Group Chairs to send a copy of all their materials to the Secretariat.
- Finally, Pettan praised the three interviews with Honorary Members which had been featured in recent issues of the Bulletin: with Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia, Trần Văn Khê, and Dieter Christensen.
Farewells
- Pettan asked for a moment of silence to honour the ICTM members who had passed away since the previous General Assembly: Marianne Bröcker (1936‐2013), Barbara Sparti (1932‐2013), Jan Ling (1932‐2013), Ruža Bonifačić (1960‐2014), Judith McCullogh (1935‐2014), Amnon Shiloah (1928‐2014), Wolf Dietrich (1938‐2014), Robert Günther (1929‐2015), Ilse Reuter (1941‐2014), Fayzulla M. Karomatli (1925‐2014), Anca Giurchescu (1930‐2015), Trần Văn Khê (1921‐2015), and Bazaraly Muptekeyev (1968‐2015).
Membership development
- The geographical breakdown of ICTM members was detailed as follows: 20% USA, 7% China, 7% Japan, 5% UK, 5% Germany, 4% Australia, 4% Italy, 4% Austria, 3% Canada, 3% France. The rest of the membership (39%) was spread out over many countries, each averaging 2% of the membership total.
- A steady increase of members and subscribers was noted during the previous two years, making 2014 a record year in terms of membership, in spite of it being a non-conference year.
- Electronic subscriptions to the Yearbook for Traditional Music had been widely adopted by subscribers, and print‐only subscriptions were becoming increasing less popular.
Financial reports for the previous two years
- Since 2012, the Council had steadily increased its revenues, reaching new heights in 2013 and 2014, for both conference and non-conference years, respectively. The operations of the Council generated a record surplus in the previous two years, which was reinvested in supported memberships, special‐purpose funds, etc.
- The last slide of the report outlined the three special-purpose funds the Council operates: the Barbara Barnard Smith Travel Award, the Maud Karpeles Fund, and the Young Scholars Fund.
Report of the General Editor of the Yearbook for Traditional Music
- Kati Szego congratulated J. Lawrence Witzleben on his work as Guest Editor of the 2014 Yearbook, which had focused on the themes of the 2013 World Conference in Shanghai, China.
- Szego then explained that the 2015 volume was at the last stages of editing. A total of 26 articles were received, of which nine would make it to print. She was confident that the mix of topics, approaches, and geographical distribution would be appreciated by readers, and noted that four out of nine articles had a focus on dance.
- The General Editor thanked the reviews’ editors for their work, and announced that Jessica Bissett-Perea would succeed Michael Silvers as Book Notes editor with the 2015 volume, and that Kirsty Gillespie would succeed Byron Dueck as Audio Reviews editor, starting with the 2016 volume.
- Szego then thanked the Programme Co-Chairs of the 2015 conference, Razia Sultanova and Timothy Rice, for kindly agreeing to be co‐guest editors of the 2016 Yearbook. The themes of that volume would, as is customary, match those of the 2015 World Conference.
- Finally, Szego announced that the deadline for submissions of articles for the 2016 volume would be 1 January 2016, and that detailed submission information was available at the ICTM website.
Announcement of the Programme Chair of the next World Conference
- The President announced that the Executive Board had appointed Mohd Anis Md Nor and Stephen Wild as Programme Co-Chairs of the 44th ICTM World Conference.
- Anis expressed his being very honoured to be appointed, and to have Wild as Co-Chair. He informed that the Programme Committee had already been formed, and communicated that during the next World Conference the 70th anniversary of the Council would be celebrated. He asked the assembly to write suggestions for themes for the next conference and to put them into a box which would be available at the registration desk.
Report of the Nomination Committee
- Samuel Araújo, Convener of the Nomination Committee (consisting of himself, Krister Malm, and Waseda Minako), summarized the positions which would become vacant at the present General Assembly: two Ordinary Members and one Vice President.
- The Nomination Committee had prepared a slate of candidates, consisting of five nominations for the two vacant Ordinary Members (Suraya Agayeva, Dan Bendrups, Miguel A. García, Tan Sooi Beng, and J. Lawrence Witzleben), and two nominations for the position of Vice President (Razia Sultanova and Stephen Wild).
33. The total number of votes in the ICTM 2015 Election was 295, consisting of 268 electronic votes and 27 paper votes. Araújo then announced the names of the newly‐elected candidates:
For Ordinary Members of the Executive Board: Tan Sooi Beng and J. Lawrence Witzleben
For Vice President: Razia Sultanova
- Araújo extended the committee’s deep gratitude to all candidates for their willingness to serve the Council, and to Carlos Yoder for the technical assistance in running the electronic elections. Finally, Araújo asked for a round of applause for all candidates.
Meetings to be held during the remainder of the conference
- Castelo-Branco invited the General Assembly to the conference’s Closing Ceremony, which would be held the following Wednesday (22 July 2015) at 5 PM, where the location of the next World Conference would be revealed. The Closing Ceremony would be followed by a gala concert.
Other Business
New Honorary Membership
- Stephen Wild proposed Adrienne L. Kaeppler to become an Honorary Member of the Council.
- Wild introduced the candidacy of Adrienne L. Kaeppler to become an Honorary Member of ICTM, for her outstanding contribution to the work of the Council, as President (2005–2013), Vice President (2001–2005), Executive Board Member (1999–2001), Guest Editor of the Yearbook for Traditional Music (vol. 33, 2001), and member of the Study Groups on Ethnochoreology and on Music and Dance of Oceania.
- The proposal was put to the General Assembly, and it was approved by applause.
Other Business
- Atesh Sonneborn informed that the UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music of the World had been made available again, and that for the first time, those recordings (including 12 previously unreleased albums) would be available on CD, digital download, streaming services, and library subscription. As many as 45 members of ICTM had contributed with recordings and liner notes to the series. Sonneborn then offered coupon codes giving a 20% discount for purchases of volumes in the series.
- Razia Sultanova invited all present to attend an evening party at the student’s hostel, inviting all present to join and bring their musical instruments.
- Dan Bendrups introduced the Study‐Group‐In‐The‐Making on Music and Dance in Indigenous and Postcolonial Contexts, and invited all present to join it.
Adjournment
- Castelo-Branco called for a motion to adjourn the 42nd General Assembly of the ICTM at 15:32. Moved by Krister Malm, seconded by Susanne Fürniss, motion passed.