The second edition of the IISMC seminar – Music (and Musicologies) in the 21st century – will be held in January and dedicated to the theme of Transformation Processes in Oral Tradition Music. This is a very topical subject, because oral tradition music is changing rapidly and deeply in the wake of the social and cultural trends shaping the contemporary world.

Most of the participants will be teachers from Italian universities, involved in documenting the vitality and depth of studies in Italy. Their fields of study range from Africa to Southeast Asia, the Arab world, and the Balkans, without neglecting Italian contexts (Tuscany, Sicily, Umbria, Campania and Lazio). The internationally renowned scholars will exchange views on issues and processes, such as diasporas, transnational and transcultural phenomena, syncretism, spectacularization, heritagisation, new technologies and the Internet.

The approach to the theme is from a twofold point of view: from widespread research in the field documenting the radical changes affecting traditional music in various contexts, and from archive research in a broad diachronic perspective, which also takes into account recordings and research now more than a century old. For the historical part, there will be a special focus on the recovery, restoration and digitisation of sound and audiovisual documents from the 1970s, which are precious sources for comparative studies.