11th Moisa Summer Seminar on Ancient Greek and Roman Music
11th Moisa Summer Seminar on Ancient Greek and Roman Music
Riva del Garda, 4-9 July 2016
Every summer from 2004 to 2011, the Music Department at the Ionian University hosted a week-long seminar on ancient music, which was attended by students and scholars from several European, American and Asiatic countries. This wonderful event was unfortunately discontinued due to the Greek economic crisis. Given its importance for the rapidly-expanding community of scholars interested in ancient Greek and Roman music, since 2014 the Arion Society has brought the Seminar back to life in a new location: Riva del Garda, in the North of Italy.
Following the customary format, the programme will comprise morning sessions devoted to the study of the particular text or topic chosen for that year and a series of evening lectures on other issues of interest. In previous years, the texts and topics examined in the morning sessions have included the Pseudo-Plutarchean De Musica, Music in Comedy, Music and Women, Music in Plato’s Laws and in Aristotle’s Politics, the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata and Aristoxenus’ Elementa harmonica.
In 2016 we shall be examining a selection of passages from Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, focusing in particular on the musical matters discussed in Books 4, 12 and 14. We will follow mostly the Greek text and translations published in Douglas Olson’s recent Loeb edition (2007, The Learned Banqueters, Volume II: Books 3.106e-5, Loeb Classical Library 208 and 2011, The Learned Banqueters, Volume VII Books 13.594b-14, Loeb Classical Library 345), as well as the annotated translations provided in chapter 16 of Andrew Barker’s Greek Musical Writings 1 (Cambridge 1984, 258–304). Further materials will be circulated during the seminar.
The morning seminars will be led by Prof. Egert Pöhlmann (University of Erlangen), Prof. Eleonora Rocconi (University of Pavia), Prof. Donatella Restani (University of Bologna) and Prof. Angelo Meriani (University of Salerno). The afternoons are free for swimming, sight-seeing, sleeping or what you will, and we will reconvene at 6 pm for our evening lecture series, which this year will include the following speakers:
04.07 Prof. Tim Moore (Univ. of Washington). Musical Medeas.
05.07 Dr. Marco Ercoles (Univ. di Bologna). The music of Melanippides of Melos: some thoughts on the ancient testimonia.
06.07 Dr. Stefan Hagel (Austrian Academy, Vienna). The Meroe pipes
07.07 Prof. Egert Pöhlmann (Univ. Erlangen). A Mesomedes Corpus with notation and rhythmical scholia in Late Antiquity.
08.07 Prof. Angelo Meriani (Univ. di Salerno). Ancient Greek Musicology at Vittorino da Feltre’s School.
Both the morning sessions and the evening lectures will take place in the Conference Room of the Civic Museum, housed in Riva’s ancient castle, the Rocca, on the central square of the town (http://www.museoaltogarda.it/en/il_museo/visita ). This informal space will allow the participants to sit around a large table, a setting that encourages the open exchange of ideas that is so typical of, and vital for, this Seminar. In addition, the evening lectures provide an overview on the most recent developments in the thriving field of ancient Greek and Roman Music, as well as a chance to improve current projects thanks to the feedback and questions of the audience.
The fee for participation is 60 euros. All participants should let the organizers know that they intend to come, preferably by mid June. They will need to arrange their own accommodation, but we would be happy to provide some suggestions in different price ranges.
For any other information, please get in touch with the organizers at the following email addresses:
