[ANPPOM-L] FW: Musical Signification Project - Newsletter 27 January, 2007 [the same also attached as a PDF-file]

Qua Fev 14 22:59:32 BRST 2007

------ Forwarded Message From: Paul Forsell <paul.forsell em helsinki.fi>
Reply-To: <paul.forsell em helsinki.fi> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:19:01 +0200
To: Eero Tarasti <eero.tarasti em helsinki.fi> Subject: Musical Signification
Project - Newsletter 27 January, 2007 [the same also attached as a PDF-file]

Newsletter to the International Research Project Musical Signification

Jan 27, 2007

Dear Members:

What follows is news about some of the most important recent and upcoming
events, seminars, congresses, projects, publications, and the like. This
report is by no means exhaustive  I have just taken this information from
what I have on my desk  so if I have forgotten something, please let me
know.

The most urgent matter is of course the forthcoming world congress of
semiotics, the IASS9, which is held just every four years, and scheduled to
take place in Helsinki/Imatra on June 11-17, 2007. Originally, the deadline
for registration was extended until after the holidays, until the end of the
January. However, since the present letter is just now being sent, you may
now register during February. Let me emphasize that this is a big congress,
for which we have already received about 500 registrations. Also,
considering the history of our project, it would be nice to have music well
represented in this congress, to show how lively the research and teaching
in this field of semiotics is nowadays. So I enclose here my message to the
members of the IASS/AIS, in case you do not belong to it. Notice also that
the IASS/AIS accepts the four languages below as the official ones of the
congress:

Dear Members:

At the same time as I send you Season's Greetings from Finland, I want to
tell you that the deadline for enrollments for the IASS9,  to be held June
11-17, 2007 in Helsinki/Imatra, has been extended to Jan 31st (so far we
have received about 500 proposals). I wish you Happiness and Success for all
of the New Year!

En meme temps que je vous envoie nos voeux de la Saison de la Finlande, je
voulais vous dire que la nouvelle date limite pour les inscriptions au
congres IASS9 (en juin 11-17, 2007 à Helsinki/Imatra), sera la fin du
janvier (jusqu'au maintenant nous avons à peu pres 500 propositions). Je
vous souhaite des choses merveilleuses et succes pour toute l'Année
Nouvelle!

Al mismo tiempo que les hago llegar desde Finlandia mis saludos de cambio de
año, deseo expresarles que el plazo para la inscripción del Noveno Congreso
de la IASS del 11 al 17 de junio de 2007 en Helsinki-Imatra ha sido
extendido hasta el 31 de enero de este año (en estos momentos hemnos
recibido unas 500 propuestas de particiåación). Reciban mis mejores deseos
de un Feliz Año Nuevo 2007.

Auf derselben Zeit wie ich Ihnen unsere Wünsche der Saison aus Finnland
übersenden möchte, wollte ich Ihnen ankündigen dass das neue Datum für
Kongressanmeldungen ist bis Ende Januari verschoben geworden (bis jetzt
haben wir ungefehr 500 Vorschläge bekommen). Ich wünschen Ihnen alle beste
Sachen und Erfolg unter das ganze Jahr von 2007!

Mit herzlichsten Grüssen,

Eero Tarasti

iass-9 em helsinki.fi http://www.helsinki.fi/iass9

Representing music, we thus far have received a proposal from Marta Grabocz
for sessions on  musical narrativity, which will be attended (at least) by
Raymond Monelle, Robert S. Hatten, Anne Sivuoja-Gunaratnam and myself. In
addition, a special round-table on ³Music and Voice² is being planned by
Robert Hatten, in collaboration with Charls Pearson and Richard Littlefield.

***

On yet another Ninth! ... The 9th International Congress on Musical
Signification took place successfully last September 19-23 in Rome, at the
Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Facoltá di Lettere e Filosofia. Gathered
round the subject of ³Music, senses, body/Musica, sensi, corpo², the
conference featured about 100 papers, including participants from the local
area. We are grateful to the organizers, Professors Gino Stefani and
Agostino Ziino, and for the help of Dr. Dario Martinelli and Ms. Lina
Navickaite, for making this event possible. The proceedings of the
conference will be edited and published in the series Acta Semiotica
Fennica. There follows a list of some of the sessions, to give those who
were not present an idea of what happened:  ³Performance, Gesture,
Interpretation² (in which Prof. Kazimierz Morski also participated, also
performing on stage as pianist); ³Art, Literature, Poetry²; ³Media, Opera,
Audio-visual²; Roundtable on ³A Bodily Semiotics of Music², attended by
Stefania Guerra Lisi, Michele Lomuto, Dario Martinelli, Francesco
Spampinato, Gino Stefani, and myself; ³Subject, Perception, Experience²;
³Popular, Folk, Ethnic²; ³Theories, Methodologies, Paradigms²; ³Dance,
Movement, Space²; ³Mediatised Music: Recepton and Performance²;
³Experimentation, Avant-garde, Technology²; ³Emotion and Meaning: Approaches
to the Study of Film and Television Music²; ³Music and Body: Hermeneutic
Phantasms, Ancient, Classic, and Modern. Plenary lectures were given by Gino
Stefani, Raymond Monelle, Costin Miereanu, and myself, as well as by world-
renowned film-music composer, Ennio Morricone. His lecture was of course
eagerly anticipated, and included his illustrating at the piano how he
composed his tunes. His presentation, as well as the ensuing discussion, was
positively received by all who attended.  Morricone, who has written the
music to about 500 movies and has collaborated with most of famous film
directors of our time, will be only the second film-music composer in
history to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Academy Awards
ceremony in Hollywood in 2007. All in all, everything functioned well at the
congress, despite the long bus ride from Rome to the campus and the modern,
well-equipped facilities of the Faculty. The Finnish Embassy provided the
whole congress with a rich buffet on one evening at the Ambassador¹s
residence close to the Villa Borghese.

At the close of the proceedings it was decided that the next Musical
Signification congress will take place in the autumn of 2008  in Vilnius,
Lithuania, hosted by the Music Academy. The invitation to meet there was
extended by Rector Antanavicius, and communicated to us at Rome by Darius
Kucinskas and Lina Navickaite. This choice is a particularly happy one, on
several counts: we have never before met in a Baltic country, Lithuania has
long been well-represented in our project, and Vilnius boasts a rich
semiotic heritage  as evidenced by, among other things, the Greimas Center
at the University. We shall let you know later about the exact dates and
themes of this convention.

***

Many semiotic congresses took place in autumn, most of which featured
sessions on music. I personally traveled twice to Italy, first to Imperia,
Liguria, where Romana Rutelli, Patrizia Calefato and others organized a
symposium on Mutazioni sonore: Sociosemiotica delle pratiche musicali
contemporanee. The conference was arranged by DAMS at Imperia, the
University of Genoa, and the Italian Association for semiotics. The papers
mostly dealt with the contemporary musical scene, particularly popular
music, but some, such as Guido Ferrari, dealt with Beethoven and rock music
simultaneously. One theme was Mozart or the idea of continuous avant-garde.
Luca Marconi spoke about Enunciazioni e azioni nella canzone e nel videoclip
(his pupil, Francesco Magri, has written a thesis on my Theory of Musical
Semiotics).

Immediately thereafter another convention was held in Bari, which focused
just on Mozart: Con Mozart, Incontro di studio  2-3 ottobre 06, Risonanze,
Letture, Opera buffa e cinema, Musica a scrittura. The symposium featured
papers by, among others, Gino Stefani and Stefania Guerra Lisi, Michele
Lomuto (³Wolfgang è veramente esistito?²), Prof. Pierfranco Moliterni from
the Conservatory of Bari, as well as Susann Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio, who
spoke about I due Giovanni: Don Giovanni e Johannes di Kierkegaard. Among
the performers at the concert of Mozart's music was one of our members, Eila
Tarasti. We should also note that a Festschrift in celebration of Augusto
Ponzio¹s 65th birthday (in February) is scheduled to be published soon.

***

In Cosenza, Calabria the XXXIV Congresso di Associazione italian di studi
semiotici was organized by the Universitá degli studi della Calabria and its
Dipartimento di Filosofia. The site was the lovely campus of Arcavacata di
Rende, with the proceedings chaired by Professor Gianfranco Marrone. The
theme of this convention, which gathered a lot of Italian semioticians, was
Narrazione  ed esperienza. The most celebrated personage at the meeting was
of course Umberto Eco, who spoke on the theme of ugliness (Sulla bruttezza).
His arrival and public lecture at Aula Magna caused a traffic jam in the
town. Eco is nowadays running a doctoral school of semiotics at his home
university in Bologna, which is a part of activities conducted by the
Istituto Superiore di Studi Umanistici. There are eight doctoral students,
and in looking at the themes of their doctoral theses, one notices that they
all deal in some way with problems of memory.

Also, the Italian Society of Semiotics held its annual meeting, which was
attended by 100 persons, most of whom were quite young semioticians. So we
can truly say that Italy continues to be the ³promised land² of semiotics.
However the sad news reached the congress that the publishing house Meltemi
had retired its impressive series on semiotics, in which many fascinating
monographs had appeared. What, then, is Italian semiotics? Except for Eco,
definitely Greimassian!  And of course with further exceptions, such as
Peirce scholars and the Bari School gathered round Augusto Ponzio and
focusing on the thought of Bakhtin, Morris, Levinas, and Rossi-Landi.

How have the Italians have solved the problem of keeping semiotics an
avant-garde science?  Something constantly three steps ahead of others?
Earlier, say, in the 60s when semiotics was ³fashionable², the strategy was
double-edged. On the one hand, phenomena of high culture (art, classical
music, performance) were suddenly studied by exact methods of information
theory, linguistics, cybernetics, computers, and the like. Traditional texts
and artifacts were  ³modernized² and ³topicalized² by this shockingly new
approach. On the other hand, if the object came from ³low² culture  say,
cinema, popular tunes, rock or folk music  it was elevated to a status
worthy of academic study by the same rigorous methods. It was surprising
that Barthes could then write about popular music, novels, and so on. But in
2007 the situation is different. What ³new² aspects is semiotics is now
bringing to light with regard to , say, music? Certainly semiotics has had
fruitful results in studying extremely contemporary phenomena such as music
in media, mobile phone signals, advertising music, soundscapes, etc. Yet,
something else is needed in the area of semiotic theory itself. And that, to
my mind, is indeed a major challenge!

***

The first meeting of the Rumanian Semiotic Society took place in Bacau,
Moldavia, in October of last year. It was a very lively meeting with about
50 speeches on the most varied topics. Bacau is the birthplace of the famous
mathematician and Rumania¹s leading semiotician, Solomon Marcus. The
symposium, entitled ³Semiotics Beyond Borderlines², included some papers on
music. The main organizer was Traian Stanciulescu, who is a biosemiotician
and keen follower of recent developments in our science. For me, Rumania was
a revelation; quite different from Bulgaria, its musical traditions are
closer to Austro-Hungarian tradition, as one could hear in restaurants of
Bucharest. Also, near Bacau is a remarkable museum, namely, a manor owned by
the family of the wife of George Enescu;  this lovely place in the
countryside now serves as a retreat in which artists may stay to pursue
their creations. It is in this manor that Enescu wrote, among other works,
his Oedipe.

***

Already a tradition in southeastern Europe, the 12th Early Fall School of
Semiotics was held in Sozopol, Bulgaria, a town situated on the Black Sea.
The theme was ³Semiotics, Image and Narration², and the main organizer was
Kristian Bankov, whom we remember for his Bergson studies. He has been named
director of semiotics at the New Bulgarian University of Sofia, to succeed
the famous Maria Popova. The important person in the university is the
director of its Board, Prof. Bogdan Bogdanov, who also lectured at the Fall
School. Among the speakers were semioticians such as Winfried Nöth, Paul
Cobley, Massimo Leone, Guido Ipsen and other notables. We heard a recital by
the illustrious Bulgarian pianist Milena Mollova, who was as you may
remember the winner of the first Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, when
Dimitri Shostakovitch sat on the jury. She could not begin her career
immediately after taking first prize, however, due to political conditions
in her country. Her technique is flawless, and her interpretations of Mozart
and Chopin remarkable. We hope to hear her soon at a meeting of our project.
Also at the Fall School, the Laokoon Tango Studio gave performances under
the direction of Ivailo Aleksandrov, a doctoral student at Helsinki Theater
University who is researching theatre works of Witkiewicz.

***

In Imatra the International Semiotics Institute (ISI) continues its
activities. In June 2006 the traditional summer congress took place on June
10-15. It consisted of several, partly overlapping sections. Among them were
the following:

Music and Mediation by Erkki Pekkilä, David Neumeyer and Rick Littlefield.
Neumeyer, formerly of Indiana University at Bloomington, is now professor at
the University of Texas in Austin, where he specializes in film-music
studies. This group has also published the proceedings of this and other
meetings in an anthology that appeared just after Christmas, entitled Music,
Meaning and Media. The book appears in the series Approaches to Musical
Semiotics, Acta semiotica fennica, and can now be ordered from the ISI at
the following website: anna.mennola em icisemiotics.fi. The aforementioned
symposium featured papers by  Rimantas Astrauskas, Henry Bacon, Andrew L.
Kaye, Gershorn Stern, Yves Senden (Yves has promised next year to give an
organ recital at the Church of the Three Crosses, designed by Alvar Aalto
and located near Imatra), Lina Navickaite, G. Marrone, Leslie Gay, Ano
Sirppiniemi, Nicolai Joergesngaard Graakjaer, John Richardson, Alla Ablova,
Matthew Dorman, Laura Ahonen, Franco Fabbri, and Arto Vilkko.

Greimas retrouvé/Greimas rediscovered drew a good number of Paris School
scholars: Anne Hénault, Isabella Pezzini, Gianfranco Marrone, Peter
Stockinger, Eric Landowski, and the new director of the Greimas Center in
Vilnius, Dalia Satkayskyte. Also, Vilmos Voigt from Budapest spoke at this
session. Hénault, who had just returned from Australia, spoke about the
brilliance of aboriginal art.

Existential semiotics included speeches from Kristian Bankov, Eric
Landowski, Merja Bauters, Klau M Bernsau, Solomon Marcus, Otto Lehto, Guido
Ipsen, Dario Martinelli, Vladimir Franta, Oyvind Sörum, Eila Tarasti and
Grisell Macdonell.

Readers should be reminded that, in addition to the aforementioned book on
Music and Mediation, the ISI publishes an international series to which the
following volumes in musical semiotics have recently been added:

First, the proceedings from the Imatra Musical Signification Congress in
2001, following three years of editorial work, finally appeared half a year.
Entitled Music and the Arts I-II,  this two-volume, 1000 page set can be
ordered, like other issues of the series, by telephone: 358 5 681 6639; by
fax: 358 5 681 6628; and by email: maija.rossi em isisemiotics.fi or
anna.mennola em icisemiotics.fi

Secondly, the English translation of Gino Stefani and Stefania Guerra Lisi's
monograph,  Prenatal Styles in the Arts and in Life, has appeared as volume
XXIV of the series. The translation is by an African scholar, Dr. Anthony
Emezie Mereni, who mistakenly was not named as such in the book. This
influential theory, which is the cornerstone of the approach to Globalità di
linguaggi, is now available to non-Italian readers.

Lastly, just last week a monograph by Dario Martinelli was published:
Zoosemiotics: Proposals for a Handbook (Acta Semiotica Fennica XXVI, 297
pp.). It contains central theoretical essays by this young Italian precursor
of zoomusicology, who is now residing in Finland.

***

In Paris in May 22, 2006 there convened a group of scholars working at the
Institut de l¹esthétique et des arts contemporains (IDEAC), Sorbonne/CNRS,
under the direction of Prof. Costin Miereanu. This was a part of an
evaluation process, running also in French Universities, in which one of the
directors of CNRS, Prof. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé made a close inspection of
the laboratory. The meeting include reports from various sections of IDEAC,
one of which was a report on Musique: Théories esthétiques et analytiques
modernes et contemporaines; speakers included composer Hugues Dufour, who
talked about Les nouvelles catégories de la pensée musicale, Jean-Yves
Bosseur on Formalisations du musical, along with presentations by Jean-Marc
Chouvel and Xavier Hascher. Moreover, this meeting provided Costin Miereanu
and myself with the opportunity to clarify the activities of the Musical
Signification Project. Other sessions at the meeting included those on
dramatic arts, cinema, choreography, technologies of arts, and performance
studies; these were evaluated by their respective scholars. Among others,
the pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud spoke about research in musical
performance at the University of Ivry, global musicology, musical
techniques, the concert ritual and its gestural practices. Altogether the
occasion went fine, and the inspectrice concluded her evaluations on a very
positive note, by praising the creativity of the Institute.

One member of IDEAC group, Olivier Lussac, has published a book in
l¹Harmattan's series, Arts et Sciences de l¹Art. This interesting study is
titled Happening and Fluxus:  Polyexpressivité et pratique concrète des
arts.

***

On June 5-7, 2006 an international symposim on Music and Philosophy: Emotion
and Reason was organized at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Among the
keynote speakers were Stephen Davies (³Musical Understanding²), Estelle
Jörgensen from Indiana University, Bloomington (³Seeing Double: A
Comparative Approach to Music Education²), and myself (³The Existential and
Transcendental Aspect of Music²).

***

Under the initiative of Jean-Marie Jacono, the Université de Provence Aix
Marseille I organized a colloquium on La sémiotique existentielle de la
musique/Existential Semiotics of Music, held at Aix en Provence on April
2-4, 2006. This was the first convention outside Finland to be exclusively
dedicated to this theory, and among its speakers were Benoit Aubigny,
Kristian Bankov, Siglind Bruhn, Daniel Charles, Hector Fernandez Bahillo,
Vladimir Franta, Emmanuel Gorge, Dario Martinelli, Costin Miereanu, Ramunas
Motiekaitis, Lina Navickaite, Tom Pankhurst, Pärttyli Rinne, and Francesco
Spampinato. The proceedings from this sympsoium will be published. Moreover,
we should note that a special, forthcoming issue of Semiotica will be
dedicated to this topic.

***

The Department of Musicology at Helsinki University continues to educate
future doctors in our field of musical semiotics. There follows a list of
our doctoral students and the provisional or ³working titles² of their
theses in progress:  Alla Ablova (Russia): Music Archaeology: Stones as
Instruments; Hector Fernandez Bahillo (Spain): Spanish National Style in
Music;  Marianela Calleja (Argentina): Music Philosophy; Julia Shpinitskaya:
Multiculturality in the Works of Erik Bergman; Vladimir Franta (Czech
Republic): Mihail Bulgakov and Music; Liisamaija Hautsalo (Finland): The
Operas of Kaija Saariaho; Sari Helkala-Koivisto (Finland): Music and Autism;
Anu Konttinen (Finland): The Conductor¹s Gestures; Timo Laiho (Finland):
Philosophy of Music Analysis from Bohm to Deleuze; Griselle MacDonell
(Mexico): An Existential Theory of Performance: The Case of Bottesini;
Alekksi Malmberg (Finland): Space and Music: Semiotics of Concert Halls;
Ramunas Motiekaitis (Lithuania): Oriental Philosophies and Western
Avant-garde Music; Lina Navickaite (Lithuania): Beethoven Interpretations
and Piano Schools; Juha Ojala (Finland): Musical Space: A Peircean Approach;
Paolo Rosato (Italy): Music Analysis and the Theory of Homeostasis; Gabriel
Pareyon-Morales (Mexico): Fractal Theory and Music; Filip Sikorski (Poland):
Music and Literature; Wojciech Stepien (Poland): Angel Symbolism in
Eihonjuhani Rautavaara¹s Music; Juha Torvinen (Finland): The Notion of Angst
in Music; Petri Tuovinen (Finland): Music and Sports: The Case of Songs at
Football Games; Tiina Vainiomäki (Finland): Janacek¹s Theory and Practice of
Speech Melody; Elina Viljanen (Finland): The Theories of Boris Asafiev;

Most recently, last September Rita Honti defended her thesis on Bartok:
Principles of Pitch Organization in Bartók¹s ³Duke Bluebeard¹s Castle²
(Studia musicologica Universitatis Helsingiensis XIII, 361 pp.). Her
opponents were professors Vilmos Voigt (Budapest) and Tom Pankhurst
(Liverpool University). The study, which combines set theory with
Lendvai-type analysis, can be ordered from the author:
rita.honti em helsinki.fi  or from the Department: irma.vierimaa em helsinki.fi

***

Paolo Rosato¹s music to the theater piece by Montesano, ³Cosí fan tutte² was
performed at the Palazzo Wolkenstein, Via Marchetti, Trento, on Oct. 19,
2006.  Rosato is nowadays teaching music theory at the Conservatory of
Trapani, Sicily. It is a very progressive institute in that lovely Sicilian
town, close to the medieval-castle village of the Normans Erice (when
teaching there last March, I discovered that Karol Szymanowsky had visited
the place while composing his King Roger). Rosato is presently planning a
colloquium on musical rhetoric, to be held sometime in 2008.

***

Lelio Camilleri has published a book of his theories of musical sound and of
sound-analysis by computers, entitled Il peso del suono: Forme d¹uso del
sonoro ai fini comunicativi. The book is available for purchase from the
publisher:  Apogeo, via N, Battaglia 12, 20121 Milano; tel 02 289981. When
looking at chapter titles such as ³Il suono fiassto e la communicazione
sonora², ³Suono digitale², ³Spazio sonoro e processi di ascolto², ³Suono e
immagini², and more, one is reminded of another recent study by the French
composer Tristan Murail, founder of the spectral school, namely his Modèles
et artifices: Textes reunis par Pierre Michel (PUF 2004). As for Camilleri's
book, he intends for it to be translated into English, and is currently
looking for a publisher.

***

Ruben Lopez Cano, who is now teaching at the Barcelona Music Academy, is
running a net magazine TRANS, which has just published an issue on the theme
of Música silencios y silenciamientos: Música violencia y experiencia
cotidiana. He tells us: ³Le número se complementa con articulos que abordan
la semiotica del rock, la música y le arte en los filmes de Andrei
Tarkovski, las relaciones entre le flamenco y le rebetika, y los entresijos
de las canciones de Silvio Rodrigues.²

***

>From Spain we have just received a fresh book on John Cage, which draws from
diverse writers ranging from the Transcendalist Henry David Thoreau (On The
Duty of Civil Disobedience) to Daniel Charles (on John Cage¹s existential
semiotics of ³silence²). The book is published by Casa Encendida of the Obra
Social Caja Madrid.

***

Moreover the magazine ZEHAR, which is published in what I am guessing is the
Basque language, features Carmen Pardo¹s interview with Daniel Charles,
entitled ³On Music as an Invitation to Nobility². The conversation deals
with John Cage¹s philosophy of music, the Buddhist notion of detaching
emotions, Nietzsche¹s thinking about music, and the problem of redefining
sound in the light of Deleuze¹s input. You may find this precious document
among the enclosures. Otherwise Daniel Charles is enjoying an intensively
creative period and producing a constant flow of articles, the most recent
being ³Le corps et la voix² for the  Dictionnaire du corps edited by Michèle
Marzano; another essay on the actuality of Jankélévitch; an essay on
³Rhythm² for the Révue d¹esthétique, and much more.

***

L¹Harmattan in Paris has published a new book by Joseph-Francois Kremer
entitled Les formes symboliques de la musique, in the series Epistémologie
et philosophies des sciences. True to its title, the book follows Cassirer¹s
and other German philosophers¹ thinking about symbolic forms. The book may
be ordered via email: presse.harmattan5 em wanadoo.fr. As you know, Kremer is
Rector of the Conservatoire de Musique Darius Milhuad at Ville d¹Antony
(Hauts-de-Seine). He has published many books on music and has spent much
time in Venezuela. Moreover, he is a composer with a remarkable output, and
several of his essays have been published by Acta Semiotica Fennica.

***

At a time when publishing series on general semiotics seemed threatened by
extinction, we are glad to report that Robert S. Hatten  has been able to
continue his series on Music and Meaning at Indiana University Press. This
series has recently published his important study on Interpreting Musical
Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, which has sparked
a boom of gestural studies in musicology and brought him prizes and
distinctions. Other studies in the series are David Lidov's Is Lanugage a
Music? Writings on Musical Form and Signification (2005), and most recently
Raymond Monelle's Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral (2006).

***

Francesco Spampinato has defended his doctoral thesis at the Université de
Aix-Marseille I, Université de Provence, U.F.R. Lettres, Arts, Communication
et Sciences du Langage. His thesis, entitled Debussy et l¹imaginaire de la
matière: Metaphorisation et corporeité dans l¹experience musicale, was
directed by Bernard Vecchione, and the jury consisted of Daniele Pistone,
Alain Chareyre-Mejan, Costin Miereanu, Gino Stefani and myself. Spampinato's
thesis received the highest mark, and we hope this rich and innovative study
will soon appear as a book!

Furthermore Spampinato has announced the publication of the proceedings from
a symposium on music and language which was held last march in Bologna;
among those attending were Gino Stefani, Antoine Hennion, Jean-Jacques
Nattiez, Luca Marconi, Mario Baroni, Rossana Dalmonte, Eila Tarasti and
myself. Some were also invited to visit the Franz Liszt Study Institute
founded by Rossana Dalmonte in Bologna, which is planning a major research
project on Virtuosity in Musical Performance.

***

Laurence Le Diagon-Jacquin, from the University of Strasbourg, has launched
an elegant magazine of the poetic title, Le Paon d¹Héra: Gazette
interdisciplinaire Thématique Internationale, published by Editions du
Murmure  an equally fascinating name! The first issue is dedicated to the
myth of Orpheus in music.

***

On February 23, 2007, Benoit Aubigny will defend his habilitation at the
Université Marc Bloch Strasbourg II, directed by Xavier Hascher and entitled
Modèles (sonores) et Procès elliptique. On the jury we find Márta Grabocz,
Costin Miereanu, Danièle Pistone, and myself.

***

Marta Grabocz is editing an anthology of essays on musical semiotics, all of
them in French.

***

Maciej Jablonski continues his manifold activities in Poland from his home
institution  the Adam Mickiewicz University  at Poznan. His series on
Interdisciplinary studies in Musicology continues, the next volume, which
will appear in the first half of this year, will be dedicated to the theme
of ³Music-Culture-Erotics².  Jablonski¹s own study, Music as Sign, will be
published in English in the series Acta Semiotica Fennica. In addition, he
is editing the most authoritative musicological publication in Poland, Res
facta nova. The latter, which is published biannually, now plans to launch a
new section  called ³Tarasti Circles²  that will be included in each
issue.

***

At Helsinki University the eminent Russian specialist on non-verbal sign
systems, Grigori Kreidlin (Moscow University), gave a course on his
specialties, including such areas as ³voice² and ³tone². He started by
giving various meanings in Russian language of these terms and then
analyzing them. His studies, based on a large amount of intercultural
evidence, will soon be available in English as well as Russian.

***

Kaire Maimets-Volt from Tallinn informs us that the third congress on
Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIMO7) will be held in Tallinn, hosted by the
Estonian Music Academy. The theme of the convention will be SINGING. The
dates are August 15-19, 2007. The deadline for submissions has already
passed, but perhaps exceptions may be made. For further information, visit
the following website: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cimo7/

***

The 40th Baltic Musicological Conference will be held in Vilnius on Oct.
17-20, 2007 under the theme Poetics and Politics of Place in Music. As you
might recall, this nice tradition started in 1967 as an annual forum for the
Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian musicological communities. The conference
was highly meaningful for those countries, especially in its early days; I,
as an outsider, was especially privileged to attend them in Riga, Vilnius,
and Viljandi. The congress will deal with such subjects as the cultural
meanings of place, local versus global, music and/for community, the
embededness of music in cultural context, the sense and representation of
place, and the politics of identity. The conference is being organized by
the Lithuania Composers¹ Union, located at  A Mickeviciaus 29, LT 08117
Vilnius; for further information please see the following websites:
www.mic.lt, www.lks.lt, and info em lks.lt. Languages of the conference are
English and German, and the deadline for papers is March 1st, 2007. Among
the featured speakers will be Vytautas Landsbergis, and the program
committee consists of Algirdas Ambrazas, Jonas Bruveris, Grazina
Daunoraviciene, Lyudmila Kovnatskaya, Adam Krims, Helmut Loos, Raymond
Monelle and myself.

***

The Estonian Cultural Foundation has given 10 000 kroons toward the editing
and printing of a book of Sibelius studies and essays, written by Estonian
musicology's most eminent figure, Leo Normet, who passed away some time ago.
These are essentially materials from his doctoral thesis, which he defended
in Moscow but which went unpublished because they did not contain the
obligatory nods to Marxism. Leo's widow, Sirje Normet, tells us the
publisher will be the Tallinn-based Russian house, Edition Alexandra. We
have cherished memories of Normet from his participation at our congresses,
among others, the one on semiotics of opera at Imatra in 1993. The
roundtable at this meeting was filmed by Finnish advertising TV, and we have
a copy of this historic document, which also features speakers  Vladimir
Karbusicky, Jaroslav Jiranek, Leo Samama, Julie Rushton, and Raymond
Monelle.

Here we should mention a recently published study on Sibelius, written by
Russian musicologist Vera Nilova from Petroskoi.

***

Antonin Servière from Paris Univ IV Sorbonne announces that a conference on
Jean Sibelius et la modalité, Implications historiques, stylistiques, et
esthétiques will be held in Paris on November 4-8, 2007. He is in charge of
arrangements for the conference, which will take place at the Institut
Finlandais, 60 rue des Ecoles, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary
of Sibelius¹s death. At the same time, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will be
giving a series of concerts of Sibelius's music in Paris, conducted by
Esa-Pekka Salonen.

***

American musicologist Leo Treitler (New York) was impressed when he visited
our doctoral semiotics seminar. When he heard a tape (played by doctoral
student Liisamaija Hautsalo) of Kaija Saariaho¹s opera L¹amour de loin, he
was struck by its connection with his own work on medieval music. The plot
of the opera, whose central figure is the troubadour Jaufré Rudel, is
derived from that figure's song, which Treitler discusses in his study With
Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How It Was Made (Oxford
University Press, 2003). As of last May, Treitler was writing his
contribution to a Festschrift for Charles Rosen, which we dare to reveal
will be a kind of trope on Rosen¹s essay ³Should We Adore Adorno?²,
published some time ago in the New York Times Review of Books.

***

We should note that Charles Rosen will celebrate his 80th birthday this 
year. He continues his very active performance schedule, playing in England 
last August, then in Bloomington, Indiana, then Florida, then on Mozart 
concerts in New York.

***

Manoel Correa de Lago,  a musicologist from Rio de Janeiro, a specialist on 
Villa Lobos tells us that is thesis won a prize from CAPES (the best thesis 
of the year 2005). Now he continues the critical edition of Guia Pratico by 
Heitor Villa-Lobos for Academia Brasileira de Musica. I remember Manuel from 
1976, during my student days in Rio!

***

Concerning Sarah Menin, a British  musicologist who studies 
interrelationships between music and architecture, we hear new from her 
university at Newcastle that she has had difficulties continuing there. 
There is a campaign in the international community to defend her. As we 
recall, Sarah Menin was focusing on connections between Sibelius and Alvar 
Aalto. Let us hope that all ends well.

***

Danuta Mirka from Katowice, Poland has been chosen for a position at the 
University of Nottingham, after spending several years in Germany. 
Congratulations!

***

André Helbo from Bruxelles has published a new book that may be of 
significance for anyone interested in music theater and opera, namely, 
Signes du spectacle: Des arts vivants aux medias. The book, published in 
2006, appears in the Dramaturgies series issued by Peter Lang.

***

Michel Espagne (Paris Ecole Normale Supérieure), whom we know for his 
provocative book Transferts culturels (PUF), has published the proceedings 
from a symposium held at l'Institut finlandais, entitled Le primes du Nord. 
Pays du Nord, France, Allemagne 1750-1920 (Lérot publications, Tusson, 
Charente). It contains essays on the Nordic arts, including music, in their 
relation to France and Germany.

***

The Bulgarian semiotician Ivan Mladenov (New Bulgarian University) has 
published a remarkable contribution to Peirce studies, entitled 
Conceptualizing Metaphors: On Charles Peirce¹s Marginalia (2006). The book 
appears in the authoritative series, Routledge Studies in Linguistics.

***

The Italian semiotician Giulia Ceriani from Siena  one of the important 
centers of semiotic studies in Italy  has presented us with some novel 
insights in her study Il senso del ritmo, published in 2005 by Meltemi, in 
the series Segnature. More on the Italian semiotic scene:  the book by Luca 
Marconi, on Musica, Espressione, Emozione, at CLUEB, might have escaped our 
attention, when it was published in 2001. Marconi is now researching issues 
related to musical tension.

***

Julius Fujak and his colleagues from Univerzita Konstantino Filozofa v 
Nitre, in Nitra, Slovakia, has edited an avant-gardist anthology Slovenske 
hudobne alternativy: Ustav literarmej a umeleckej komunikácie (2006). The 
book is accompanied by a CD of music by Fujak, entitled transPOPsitions, 
intermedia wrestling, a live recording made at the REDCAT Theatre, Los 
Angeles.

***

Three doctoral theses have been accepted at the Lithuanian Academy of Music 
and Theatre in Vilnius, by young scholars of whom two have enjoyed teaching 
in the doctoral seminars of our project: Kamile Rupeikaite, on the semantics 
of musical instruments in the Bible; Daiva Dzenkaitiene, on the structure of 
musical space in renaissance polyphony; and Audra Versekenaite, on the 
functioning of the Dies irae sequence in the music of the 20th century.  The 
Academy normally publishes an English summary of all theses; this summary, 
in booklet form, proves quite helpful if the studies are not in an 
international language.

Still in Lithuania: the proceedings from the 38th Baltic Musicological 
Congress, held October 21-23, 2004, have now appeared through the Lithuanian 
Composers¹ Union, entitled Musical Work: Boundaries and Interpretations.

***

Andrea Valle has published a monograph entitled Trappola sonotra: 
Sull¹udibile in the Conversation di Francis Ford Coppola in the series 
Quaderni di Semiotiche 1 (Torino: Editrice Uni Service, 2006).

***

>From Brazil we have a new monograph by Paulo de Tarso Salles, entitled 
Aberturas e impasses: O pós-modernismo na música e seus reflexos no Brasil 
1970-1980. From the same country we have received a new publication from our 
very active colleagues Maria de  Lourdes Sekeff and his son, composer Edson 
Zampronha. This collective work, Arte e cultura IV (Sao Paulo: Editions 
AnnaBlume and FAPESP), contains interesting essays by many Brazilian and 
Hispanic scholars, two of which essays we mention here:  Mrs Lordes Sekeff's 
³Musica e globalizacao², which centers on musical education following the 
principles of unicidade/diversidade; and the essay by Valladolid scholar, 
Carlos Villar-Taboada, on ³Sinestesias en torno al impresionismo musical  
Puentes conceptuales entre musica y pintura².

***

Let me encourage you to follow the Musikeion webpage/email-list which José 
Luiz Martinez is maintaining at Sao Paulo. The site lists timely news about 
congresses and events, and list-members engage in discussions about problems 
in semiotics, mostly in English, sometimes in Portuguese. Musikeion  the 
premier ³forum on the meaning of music²  can can be accessed at 
musikeion em pucsp.br

***

Dario Martinelli and Lina Navickaite have edited and published at the UMWEB 
editor a nice booklet on cultural relations entitled Finland - Italy: A Few 
Comparisons. You can order this via www.umweb.org

***

Let me close with news about my own activities. I have given interviews that 
have appeared or are forthcoming. Lina Navickaite interviewed me (in 
Lithuanian) for a Lithuanian magazine Kulturos barai, Kultors ir meno 
menesinis zurnalas, www.eurozine.com; the interview appeared in its 
(printed) issue of 12/2006 and is entitled Galbut E.T. Su svedu semiotiku ir 
muzikologu kalbasi. There is an English version of the interview but it has 
not yet been published. Another interview, conducted by Joao Marcos Coelho 
for the Brazilian music magazine Diapason (no. 3, julho/agosto, 2006), 
appears under the title ³E preciso reler Macunaima² - which is of course a 
reference to the great Brazilian intellectual and musicologist, Mario de 
Andrade. Finally, Ildar Khannanov, from Oklahoma University  who joined us 
in Rome, where gave an interesting paper on Rachmaninov  interviewed me for 
a forthcoming issue of the Russian music journal, Musical Academy Quarterly, 
edited by Valentina Kholopova and Dr. Vlasova.

A theoretical essay of mine on the current status of existential semiotics  
³Existential and Transcendental Analysis of Music²  has appeared in English 
in the Italian yearbook Studi musicali (anno XXXIV 2005, n. 2, by the 
Accademia nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Firenze: Leo S Olschki Editore). The 
director of this publication is our colleague from Rome's Tor Vergata 
University, Prof. Agostino Ziino.

Furthermore, two books of mine have been recently translated into Italian: 
Introduzione alla semiotica esistenziale, translated by Massimo Berruti from 
Turin, and Musica a seis segni, translated by Brent Waterhouse and Paolo 
Rosato. They now await publication. The same book, which is a completely 
revised and expanded edition of the American version of Existential 
Semiotics, is now being translated into French (by Jean-Laurent Csinidis),  
Spanish (by Drina Hocevar), Bulgarian (by a group from Sofia), and Russian 
(by Vladimir Franta).

***

I wish all of you success in your work and hope that you will keep in touch!

Very sincerely yours,

Eero Tarasti prof. University of Helsinki

eero.tarasti em helsinki.fi

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