International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

A Non-Governmental Organization in Formal Consultative Relations with UNESCO

The October 2019 issue of the Bulletin of the ICTM is available for download

A new issue of the Bulletin of the ICTM (Volume 141, October 2019) is available for download, directly from the following links:

  1. Bulletin of the ICTM Vol. 141 (October 2019), good quality (2.6 MB). Recommended for reading on screen only, and for users of slower Internet connections. 
  2. Bulletin of the ICTM Vol. 141 (October 2019), best quality (5.2 MB). Recommended for those intending to print the Bulletin.

As always, both editions are completely identical as content is concerned. The only difference resides in the quality of the inline images. The Bulletin is formatted as a PDF document, so please make sure your device has an updated PDF reader installed, or you may experience difficulties while reading and/or printing it. If you are unsure, you can try downloading Adobe Reader, one of the most popular PDF-reading software, directly from this link.

Below you will find the Message from the Secretary General, written by Ursula Hemetek, as included on page 2 of the issue. 


 

Our October Bulletin is always a very rich document, and this issue is no exception. Please take your time to take in all the important announcements and reports!

In addition to looking back at the very successful World Conference in Bangkok (see reports by the Local Arrangements and Programme Committees on pages 10–13), there were many other happenings that occurred during the World Conference: the 44th General Assembly of Members, the 15th Assembly of National and Regional Representatives, and the 3rd Assembly of Study Group Chairs. You can find the minutes of all these meetings at the corresponding section of the ICTM website, and I think it is worth reading them. All these assemblies are a tool to involve the membership in the Council’s policy-making, and I am grateful that they were all very well attended, and that they provided a fruitful and lively exchange of ideas.

The biennial ICTM elections have also taken place. You can find a report by the Convener of the Nomination Committee in the minutes of the 45th General Assembly, and I also wanted to comment my own point of view. Considering my mission to further the democracy and transparency of ICTM, the participation of nearly 50% of the membership (the highest percentage ever!) in the elections shows that we are moving into the right direction. The newly elected Executive Board members also represent a younger generation of scholars, a fact which I appreciate very much.

Our membership is constantly growing, and the new outreach possibilities offered by Cambridge University Press (CUP) as the publisher of the Yearbook for Traditional Music are very promising. I am very much looking forward to the first volume published on our behalf by CUP, which will reach you by the end of this year, and I am very grateful to our General Editor, Lee Tong Soon, for taking up the challenge of the transition.

There is another piece of news to announce: the Executive Board decided that ICTM will, for the first time in its history, award prizes to exceptional articles, books, and documentary films. The EB Committee responsible for this task, chaired by J. Lawrence Witzleben, has been working hard in order to announce them now (see pages 4–5).

The finances of ICTM are in good shape thanks to our growing membership (for more details see the minutes of the 44th General Assembly). That is why the Secretariat and the Executive Board strive to give back to the membership as much as possible, by funding the participation of delegates to ICTM events. This worked very well for the Bangkok World Conference, where we distributed more than EUR 34,000 among 44 participants (a new record), including the funds awarded to us by the UNESCO Participation Programme.

As revealed by the First General Survey of ICTM Members, Study Group meetings are the most popular events among our members, with 273 out of 288 responders considering that Study Group meetings are either “very important” or “extremely important.” I think it is very useful for us to have definitive proof that Study Groups are one of the most important bodies of ICTM. That is why we are happy that a new Study Group Allowance that will support participation in Study Group symposia during 2020 was announced during the 3rd Assembly of Study Group Chairs.

There are also some changes concerning Study Groups since our last Bulletin. I want to welcome the newly-elected officials of the Study Group on African Musics (Chair: Sylvie Le Bomin, Vice Chair: Patricia Opondo, Secretary: Ana Flávia Miguel), of the Study Group on Sound, Movement, and the Sciences (Secretary: Rafael Caro), and of the recently-renamed Study Group on Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Chair: Marko Kölbl, Vice Chair: Rachel Ong, Secretary: Rasika Ajotikar). As you can see on the Announcements section of this Bulletin, Study Groups continue to be extremely active, and I would be happy to see you at some of these events.

The World Network is growing as well. I want to welcome our new representatives from Austria (Hande Sağlam), Belgium (Hélène Sechehaye), Madagascar (Victor Randrianary), and Sweden (Sverker Hyltén-Cavallius). Recently, a new National Committee for Israel has been approved by the Executive Board; congratulations!

Please enjoy reading the Bulletin. As always, both the editor, Carlos Yoder, and I will be happy to read your feedback.


Hoping you will enjoy reading the many reports, announcements, calls for proposals, reviews and other news, I kindly remind you that the Bulletin of the ICTM is not attached to any membership or subscription, so you are very welcome to forward this e-mail to your colleagues.

While we always strive to make the Bulletin richer and more useful, it is a task which cannot be done alone — so I warmly invite you to send your opinions, comments, suggestions, ideas, or any other kind of feedback, so we can make together a better Bulletin for everybody.

Carlos Yoder
Editor, Bulletin of the ICTM