Institute of Comparative Music – Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Istituto: Institute of Comparative Music

Diego Carpitella Scholarship – New Call 2025

Diego Carpitella Scholarship

Deadline for applications:15 April 2025

 

New call for applications for an annual research scholarship of 5,000 euros in memory of Diego Carpitella, to be awarded to a young researcher to produce an audiovisual product of ethnomusicological interest. Projects received in response to the call for applications will be assessed by a panel of three experts. The winner will undertake to produce the work, which will be premiered in Venice. A copy of the material produced during the project will be kept in the Institute for Comparative Music Studies Archive.

Byzantine and Sufi Chants in Cyprus

Concert | Musical Direction by Kudsi Erguner and Giannis Koutis

Building on a decade-long collaboration with Kudsi Erguner, artistic director of the advanced training project in Ottoman classical music Birûn, the Institute presents an event dedicated to interfaith dialogue.
Two choirs, Byzantine and Ottoman, have been invited to perform in Venice, accompanied on the ney flute by Kudsi Erguner himself. The repertoire includes significant Muslim and Eastern Orthodox Christian musical works, composed within the cosmopolitan context of Constantinople during the Ottoman period.

The event is held thanks to the contribution of the Fondation A.G. Leventis
www.leventisfoundation.org | p.panayi.cy@icloud.com

Free admission until capacity is reached | 18:00

Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies

Ethnography of Recording Studios

This volume, the fourth in a series of online publications that the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies promotes from its international ethnomusicology seminars, stems from the three-year work of a research group funded by the Ernst von Siemens-Musikstiftung and consists of a series of monographic studies on the conception of harmony in Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schönberg, Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varèse and Anton Webern. The authors focus their attention on one or more works by the composer of reference, relating the harmonic processes to the theoretical issues debated at the time or that emerged in subsequent decades. The approach takes particular account of current developments in international musicology, the gaps in Italian studies and the needs of higher education in AFAM and university venues. At the same time, it aims to make a contribution to the reflection and methodology of music theory in our times.

 

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Eye on Music | Audiovisual Ethnomusicology Projects

Seminar and screening of ethnomusicological films curated by Giovanni Giuriati, Marco Lutzu and Simone Tarsitani

 

The seminar and film screening are part of a broader initiative called Sguardi Musicali – Audiovisual Ethnomusicology Projects, launched in 2018 by the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies of Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice with the aim of promoting training and production support activities in the field of audiovisual ethnomusicology.

This year’s edition includes a seminar in the morning for Ca’ Foscari Venice University students on the theme of dialogic ethnomusicology, with the participation of anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, filmmakers and musicians. In the afternoon, there will be a presentation of three documentary films, including the film made by the winner of the 2023 Carpitella Grant in its world premiere.

 

 

Seminar* | h 11:00 – 13:00

Dialogic Ethnomusicology. Interactions between researchers, filmmakers and musicians

 

 

With the participation of:

Valentina Bonifacio, Ca’ Foscari University Venice

Giovanni De Zorzi, Ca’ Foscari University Venice

Ofer Gazit, Ca’ Foscari University Venice

Giovanni Giuriati, Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice

Marco Lutzu, University of Cagliari

Diego Pani, Carpitella Grant 2023, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Antonio Migheli, Su Cuncordu ‘e su Rosàriu di Santu Lussurgiu

Simone Tarsitani, Durham University

 

*Seminar open to university students

 

Screenings | h 15:00 – 18:00

 

Sardinian Music

by Georges Luneau in collaboration with Bernard Lortat-Jacob (1990) | 28 min

 

Sardinian Masters’ Talk

by Marco Lutzu and Ignazio Macchiarella (2016) | 23 min

 

premiered in the presence of the director and the singers:

Mantènnere: guarding the sacred sound

by Diego Pani (2024) | 55 min

Concert of the Ensemble Nasim-e Tarab

The Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies in collaboration with the Ca’ Foscari University Foundation, presents the first concert conceived by the study group “maqam Beyond Nation” as the result of its research (for more information on the project: https://www.maqamproject.uk).

 

The group is the winner of an ERC-UKRI Award shared between the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, under the coordination of Giovanni De Zorzi. 

The Ensemble Nasim-e Tarab, conducted by Saeid Kordmafi, has been invited from Iran especially for the occasion.

 

The concert, organised as a typical suite of Persian art music, will focus on original Kordmafi compositions inspired by elements (genres, rhythmic cycles, musical modes) from the nearby Middle Eastern and Central Asian traditions of maqām. The original compositions will alternate with traditional pieces of Persian art music selected over a broad time span ranging from the 17th to the 21st century.

 

9.00 pm | Free entry until full capacity

Concert by the Ensemble Bezmârâ

In collaboration with the Cà Foscari University of Venice Foundation, this is the second appointment organized by the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies of the study group maqām Beyond Nation. The Ensemble Bezmârâ, directed by Fikret Karakaya, will be invited especially for the occasion.

Since the second half of the 1990s, the ensemble has focused on repertoires of ancient Ottoman music, in particular from the 16th-18th centuries performed on period instruments.

 

The programme features a series of compositions attributed to Persian or Azerbaijani musicians known as ajamlar, (or acemler, acemî or acemyûn) which we find in the transcriptions by Woichiech ‘Ali Ufukî Bobowski (transcribed in the mid-17th century), Demetrius Cantemir (between 1700-1703) and Nâyi Mustafa Kevserî (between 1720 and 1740): beyond their beauty, these compositions today allow us to place both art music, Ottoman and Persian, in a broader historical perspective and testify, according to the intentions of the study group, an interaction that comes from a distant past and goes beyond modern nations and their respective cultural nationalisms.

 

h 6pm | Free entrance subject to availability

 

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    Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies

    The Institute promotes the understanding of musical expression across various cultures and investigates contemporary musical processes from an intercultural perspective. It organises seminars, scientific conferences on intercultural musicology, theoretical and practical masterclasses, and concerts dedicated to the musical traditions and dance of contemporary world cultures. Particular attention is given to teaching and collaboration with local cultural institutions, primarily Ca’ Foscari University.

    Founded in 1969 by Alain Daniélou at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in conjunction with the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies and Documentation in Berlin (established in 1963), the Venetian Institute, during its first ten years of activity, raised awareness in the West about the foremost interpreters of major non-European musical traditions. This was achieved by coordinating European festivals and creating an LP series, Musical Atlas, published by EMI in collaboration with UNESCO.

    In addition to various initiatives hosted on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, the Institute promotes its events online, particularly through video excerpts on the Foundation’s YouTube channel and in its publications. In 1979, the Institute founded the Intercultural School of Music in Venice in collaboration with the Fond International pour la Promotion de la Culture (UNESCO), the University of Venice, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The School represented a unique initiative in Italy to introduce and promote the world’s great musical and choreographic traditions, especially those of India. Since 1993, the Institute has further strengthened its scientific focus in ethnomusicology and comparative musicology through various projects, including a 20-year cycle of International Ethnomusicology Seminars curated by Francesco Giannattasio. Scientific and spectacular initiatives, such as the Polifonie ‘in viva voce’ cycle curated by Maurizio Agamennone, have been held in close collaboration with multiple institutions, including Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice. In 1999, the Institute became one of the institutes of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, establishing its own historical archive, which includes the Alain Daniélou Archive and an important collection of videotaped documentation dating back to 1979.

    The Institute also maintains its own editorial series, Intersezioni musicali, in collaboration with the publisher Nota of Udine.

    Since 2004, the Institute has been directed by Giovanni Giuriati.

    Detail of the back cover of the LP Musical Atlas, Cambodia, 1968. © Fondazione Giorgio Cini

    The Institute was conceived by the renowned ethnomusicologist Alain Daniélou, a few years after he established the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies and Documentation in Berlin. Since its inception, it has been internationally recognised as a centre for research and the dissemination of knowledge on the great extra-European musical traditions.

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    CONCERTS AND SHOWS

    In recent years, all events have been documented in audio and video using multi-camera and multi-track systems. From the complete recordings, held in the Institute’s archive, clips are extracted and featured in the IISM – All Videos playlist on the Foundation’s YouTube Channel.

    Visit the full playlist on YouTube

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    Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies

    DIRECTOR
    Giovanni Giuriati
    CONTACTS
    musica.comparata@cini.it

    Repatriating/Rematriating sounds: a (digital) challenge for XXI-Century Sound Archives

    The concepts of repatriation and rematriation are crucial for contemporary sound and audiovisual archives that preserve music of oral tradition. Indeed, these concepts are at the core of important issues in the contemporary debate of the ethnomusicological discipline, such as the processes of decolonization, the development of a participatory, shared, dialogic ethnomusicology, the accessibility of sources through new technologies, the historical dimension of research on music of oral tradition and the use of archival recordings for educational purposes.

    Ethnomusicology has been concerned with repatriation for more than three decades. Recent technological, economic, and sociocultural changes, however, have brought forth new questions that call ethnomusicologists to engage in profound reflection. Who are the subjects (individual or collective) entitled of repatriation projects in a global context in which the bonds between territories, ethnicities, languages, and religions are becoming increasingly nuanced? Who holds the rights over the documentation of the past? How do local and global access to archival collections relate to each other in the age of the Web? How can cultural institutions balance the interests of entitled individuals with their mission of public service and make the repatriation and rematriation actions economically sustainable?

    The seminar aims to provide an overview of the most up-to-date theories and research methodologies on the topic, but also, and especially, to present some significant good practices that are being implemented today in the perspective of a public ethnomusicology.

     

    Scientific Committee:

    Giovanni Giuriati, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
    Gianluca Chelini, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
    Costantino Vecchi, Università Ca’Foscari Venezia

     

    Download the programme

    Ethnography of Recording Studios

    The volume Ethnography of Recording Studios is the fourth in a series of online publications that the IISMC is promoting, based on its international ethnomusicology seminars. It is a series that addresses current research topics with the aim to contribute to an international debate on the discipline. At the same time, it intends to create valuable teaching resources, especially at the university level. Edited by Giovanni Giuriati and Serena Facci, the volume stems from a Seminar organized in San Giorgio in 2019, and, through the contributions of several authors, mostly Italian, aims to provide an interdisciplinary reflection on a crucial place for musical creation, now that musics are increasingly circulating in reproduced and mediatized forms. Those who, like ethnomusicologists, have always been concerned with living musics must contend with the continuous redefinition of the places and practices of music production. In this perspective, the recording studio has become an important space for research in recent decades. The main theme on which this volume aims to reflect is the possible application of ethnographic research, proper to the anthropological method, to a contemporary, technological world with the aim of constructing interpretive models that draw on both the methodologies of ethnomusicology and popular music studies. Some of the ‘classic’ issues of ethnomusicological research (study of creative processes, performing practices, status of the musician) are combined with new issues raised by the changed context – the recording studio – in which the observed activities take place. These include the lack of a direct audience, the relationship with increasingly sophisticated technologies, the delocalization and fragmentation of teamwork, and the creative role of professional figures other than the musician such as the producer and the sound engineer.

    Leading scholars of ethnomusicology and popular music studies at the international level contribute their own theoretical reflections to this volume, alongside the presentation of significant cases of ethnographic research comparing different experiences in terms of both musical genres and geographical areas, ranging from Europe, to Africa, and Asia.

    As is to be expected, in such an online publication there are several links that refer to audiovisual documentation, making this volume fully multimedia.

     

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