News Research Event Review: International congresses at the HfMN

03. January 2025

Alex South talking about cetacean vocalization Photo: Lisa Herrmann-Fertig, Source: HfM Nürnberg

Founding Symposium of the Study-Group-in-the-Making on “Multispecies Sound and Movement Studies” in the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD) and Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Germany within ICTMD at HfM Nuremberg

The founding symposium “Why More-Than-Human Musicking Now?” for the Study Group “Multispecies Sound and Movement Studies” in the international ethnomusicological society ICTMD (International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance) took place at the HfM Nuremberg at the end of October 2024.

This was followed by the German National Committee of the ICTMD with its general assembly and a symposium entitled ‘Of Singing Birds, Trumpeting Elephants and Breathing Forests: Multispecies and Interdisciplinary Research Approaches and Musical Practice in Ethnomusicology and Free Reports’. The Nuremberg University of Music has become an institutional member of the ICTMD, strengthening its musicological profile in the field of ethnomusicology.

Please find the program of both symposia here.

Scholars and artists from diverse disciplines came together to (re)consider our understanding of music and sound in a multi-species context. From indigenous communities to urban settings, from natural habitats to digital realms, the ways in which humans engage with other species through music and sound were highlighted in numerous contributions.

This opened up a promising field of research that will be explored in greater depth in the future study group. Due to the completely hybrid realisation it was possible to establish contacts on site as well as to integrate international participants from all continents.

Artistic highlights included a film screening Beyond Tradition: Power of Nature's Voices (2023) with a discussion with director Lea Hagmann, an online lecture performance with David Rothenberg (Tibutibuvihihehehiu: Live with the Blyth's Reed Warbler), a live performance by Christian Ferlaino's All'Erva Radicchia: Goat bells from landscape to performance with conference participants and a closing concert by HfM students.