The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

12
FROM THE EDITORS
This volume contains full texts of the papers delivered at the <strong>Fifth</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>Symposium</strong> on
Traditional Polyphony. <strong>The</strong> symposium was held at Tbilisi State Conservatoire, on October 4-9 2010 under
the patronage of the President of Georgia, and with active material support from the Georgian Ministry of
Culture and Monuments Protection. Organizers: Tbilisi State Conservatoire, the <strong>International</strong> Research Center
for Traditional Polyphony and the <strong>International</strong> Centre for Georgian Folk Music.
<strong>The</strong> symposium clearly demonstrated that research into traditional polyphony is becoming an increasingly
important part of contemporary musicological research. It was in 2010 that a new ICTM study group,
dedicated to the study of traditional polyphony, was established on the basis of the ICTM. In the same year
the study group had a first meeting in Sardinia. Some time later an important publication, containing the
proceedings of the 2008 Vienna conference on European traditional polyphony, appeared. <strong>The</strong> publication
contained the newly completed lexicon of traditional European terms for traditional polyphony. Because of
increasing interest in vocal polyphony, today the research of traditional polyphony is carried out in some of the
countries where this phenomenon was totally neglected in the past.
<strong>The</strong> central theme for the fifth symposium was also directly connected to the perspectives of research into
traditional polyphony. For the first time in the history of our symposia (including the conferences of the 1980s),
a special new theme was introduced. This theme was added to the existing wide range of topics, allowing
scholars to present the results of their research connected to traditional polyphony in the widest possible way.
It was decided that a specific single theme will be added to the existing themes.
Asian Traditional Polyphony was the theme introduced specially to the program of the fifth symposium.
Asia, the most populous continent, known to ethnomu-sicologists as the symbol of monophonic singing
traditions, is the home of several extremely interesting, complex, and often unknown polyphonic traditions. It
was mostly these unknown traditions of Asian vocal polyphony that the paper of Joseph Jordania (Australia,
Georgia) discussed. Münir Beken (USA) discussed the problems of so-called Virtual Heterophony in Turkish
Classical Music. Nino Tsitsishvili (Australia, Georgia) dedicated her paper to the possible historical and
cultural links of East Georgian so-called “long” Polyphonic Song to Middle Eastern and Central Asian
monophonic music. Michael Tenzer (Canada) presented a paper on the Polyphonic Aspects of Balinese
Gamelan music. Taiwanese scholar Yu-Hsiu Lu talked about the development of a New Polyphonic Style
among the aboriginal mountain dwellers of Taiwan. Marina Kavtaradze and Ekaterine Buchukuri (both of
Georgia) dedicated their paper to the problem of the interrelation between polyphony and monophony (using
the example of Georgian urban folklore). <strong>The</strong> participation of the Japanese scholar Rie Kôchi was of particular
interest, as she talked on Ainu polyphonic traditions, representing arguably the most isolated polyphonic
tradition in the world.
<strong>The</strong> second group of papers were united by the theme Caucasian Polyphony. In view of the political
tension between Georgia and Russia the participation of Alla Sokolova (Russia, Republic of Adyghea) from
Maikop was particularly welcome. She talked about the amoebean form of singing in the Adyghe traditional
singing. Natalia Zumbadze and Ketevan Matiashvili (Georgia) presented a paper based on comparative
analyses of North Caucasian and Georgian traditional polyphony, based on materials present on the album
– <strong>The</strong> Music of the Caucasian Peoples – from the Phonogram Archives of Tbilisi State Conservatoire. Maia