Proceedings of the Second Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Sound, Movement, and the Sciences (SoMoS)

The Second Symposium of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM)—in August 2023 renamed into International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD)—Study Group on Sound, Movement, and the Sciences (SoMoS) took place in a hybrid format between 26 and 28 October 2022, hosted by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain.     

The aim of this Symposium was to bring together scholars conducting research on sound and/or movement and deploying the multidisciplinary approaches incorporating the wide spectrum of different sciences in combination with ethnomusicology and/or ethnochoreology. As announced in the Call for Papers, the Program Committee welcomed proposals on any topic aligned with the aims and themes of the Study Group insofar as they combine ethnographic and science-based approaches, explore the issues involved in such endeavors or presented reflective discussions on relevant theories and methodologies. Considering that health issues are currently highly topical, the Call for Papers highlighted the interest in receiving contributions considering the relationships ongoing among sound, movement, emotions, and health in a large variety of cultural contexts. From the 28 submitted abstracts, the Program Committee selected 14 through a double-blind peer-review process and then published them online prior to the Symposium (https://ictm-somos.github.io/Symposium-2022/program.html#program).

The oral presentations took place in six sessions with each devoted to a specific sub-theme: 1) “rhythm and tempo”, 2) “timbre and memory”, 3) “varia”, 4) “improvisation”, 5) “dance”, and 6) “voice”. Two more sessions featured an exciting lecture/concert by ethnomusicologist Marc Chemillier with musician Justin Vali, and a thought-provoking keynote presentation by Bernd Brabec. I would thank the invited speakers and performers warmly for their precious insights into the themes of this Symposium.

The Symposium also featured an open session, intended as an opportunity to more informally share and discuss ongoing and future research projects related to the SoMoS themes. Similar to a poster session, participants were free to move around the room and meet the colleagues wishing to share their ideas, data or doubts. The presenters in charge of the open session, together with the keynote and lecture/concert speakers, were invited to submit an abstract on these proceedings in accordance with the same procedure of all other presenters.

The final session included discussion of the means for publishing the Symposium’s Proceedings. Among the various formats referenced (book, abstracts, etc.), we chose to publish a collection of “extended” (approx. 1500 words) and “short” (approx. 300 words) abstracts. This mixed format is the same as that adopted by the Proceedings of the First Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Sound, Movement and the Sciences(https://zenodo.org/record/5514167).

Thus, the following pages provide readers with the Symposium program, short biographic notes of the invited speakers/performers, and 19 abstracts (10 of which are “extended”, and 9 “short”). All the extended abstracts submitted to these proceedings underwent a single-blind peer-review process. The short abstracts are published in their original version as submitted to the symposium. Instead of separating the texts according to their length, the original order of the Symposium program was maintained, thereby preserving the thematic grouping of the papers. I would like to warmly thank all the authors and reviewers who each gave their personal best to ensuring the high quality of this publication.

Lisbon, December 2023

Filippo Bonini Baraldi (Program Chair and Editor)