International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

A Non-Governmental Organization in Formal Consultative Relations with UNESCO

ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music

Multipart music is a specific mode of music making and expressive behaviour based on the intentionally distinct and coordinated participation in the performing act by sharing knowledge and shaping values. 

Multipart music represents one of the most fascinating phenomena in numerous local musical cultures. It has therefore been a favoured object of research for a long time, particularly in the national framework. Regional studies, which extend beyond political boundaries, have been, however, rare and sporadic.

Therefore a network of researchers, many of them ICTM members, is working since 2003 focusing on multipart music traditions in Europe in the framework of the “Research Centre of European Multipart Music” established at the Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology of the Vienna University of Music.

The works of this Centre served as basis upon which we were able to draw during the negotiations with the ICTM Board for the establishing of a Study Group on Multipart Music. The board reached a positive decision on the formation of the group in July 2009 after the ICTM World Conference in Durban, South Africa.

An ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music is of a great help to extend the existing network and our views on multipart music traditions worldwide, by means of research, documentation, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study, intending a tight collaboration with local singers and musicians also in the scholarly discussion processes.

Our Study Group shall promote multipart music through research, documentation, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study and shall provide a forum for cooperation among scholars and students of multipart music by means of international meetings, publications and correspondence, intending a tight collaboration with local singers and musicians also in the discussion processes. The Study Group may undertake such projects as are in support of its stated objectives, including, but not limited to, organization of Study Group symposia, and formation of sub-study groups.

New book by the ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music

Ardian Ahmedaja, ed. Local and Global Understandings of Creativities: Multipart Music Making and the Construction of Ideas, Contexts and Contents. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

Third Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music

Budapest, Hungary, September 12-16  2013

Local Organiser

Institute for Musicology. Research Centre for the Humanities. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Budapest, Hungary.

Head of the Local Organisers’ Committee: Lujza Tari.

First Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music

Cagliari, Sardinia, September 15-20, 2010

Local Organiser 

Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Dipartimento di Studi Storici Geografici e Artistici

Head of the Local Organisers's Committee: Ignazio Macchiarella

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