International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

A Non-Governmental Organization in Formal Consultative Relations with UNESCO

MINUTES of the Meeting of the ICTM Study Group on Music of the Turkic Speaking World, 13 July 2011

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

5:45 – 6:45

The School of Music, Memorial University St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada

During the 41st World Conference of the ICTM in Canada (July 13-19, 2011) the meeting of the Study Group Music of the Turkish Speaking World chaired by Razia Sultanova was called to order on Wednesday , July 13, 2011,  at 5:45 PM in the room 2017 .

1. The meeting started with warm welcome to present members of the Study Group

Introductory remarks included apologies for absence and particularly, from co-chair of Dorit Klebe who could not participate at the 41st World ICTM Conference in Canada due to her family reasons.

2. The idea of organizing our Study Group arose from the ICTM World Conference in Sheffield in 2005, where scholars working on Turkey, Central Asia, and Siberia expressed their interest in setting up the new ICTM Study Group, which was officially recognized by the ICTM a year later after its first meeting and workshop had a place in London at SOAS (University of London). On February 3- 4, 2006, twenty academics from 12 countries came to the workshop in order to provide a forum for the exchange of experiences between Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Western scholars, and to pool efforts to discover key issues of cultural phenomena of oral traditions expressed within the master-apprentice training system.

3. The Report written by Dorit Klebe of the Study Group’s 2010 symposium in Berlin, the second meeting/symposium held by the Study Group, was approved unanimously by hand vote. 

The Second Meeting of the ICTM Study Group on Music of the Turkic-speaking World took place in Berlin from May 26 – 30, 2010, at the Institute for Turcology at the Free University of Berlin, gratefully invited by the director Prof. Dr. Claus Schönig. The topic of the conference was “Vocal Traditions of Free-metric Singing in Eurasia”. Three days Conference brought together twenty scholars from Austria, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia (including Adyghey Republic, Tatarstan and Tuva), Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan/ United Kingdom.

4. Publications: so far only one book based on our Study Group’s  full size articles “Sacred Knowledge: Schools or Revelation? Master-Apprentice System of Oral Transmission in the Music of the Turkic Speaking World”, Razia Sultanova (Ed.) Cologne, Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009 vii + 117 pp., ISBN 978-3-8383-1558-4) has been published.

5.  The review by Carole Pegg on the first Study Group book publication was announced  (Journal Ethnomusicology Forum, Volume 20, Issue 1 April 2011, pages 107 – 109).

6.  Dorit Klebe is currently collecting papers of the Second Study Group symposium/meeting in Berlin -2010 for publication in Germany.

7. Other Study Group activities:  recently several small regional conferences on the Music of the Turkic speaking world were organised by the Study Group members, showing a growing interest in the subject area:

a) Turkey, Istanbul, May -2006 (organised by Feza Tansug)

  1. Azerbaijan, Baku, December- 2010 (organised by Alla Bairamova),
  2. Kazakhstan, Astana, July -2011 (organised by Saida Elemanova)

8. Future plan of the Study Group has been announced:

to host the next Study Group’s symposium in 2012 in the area of the Turkic speaking world, most probably in Kazakhstan or Turkey,  bringing together local and western academics,  scholars and students.

9. Below are mentioned suggested themes for the next STG symposium.

The local organizer and the Study Group Board will make the final decision:

a) Music and Identity;

b) Popular music;

c) Instrumental music;

d) Musical narrations;

e) Sufism in contemporary world;

f) Religious music;

g) Khorasan and Turkish connections;

h) Transnational Turkish communities;

i) Turkish influence on the Turkic speaking world;

j) Al-Farabi’s contribution to the Arabic-Persian world

10. The Chair thanked all present and adjourned the meeting at 6:45 PM.