Music in Dark Times. Europe, East and West, 1930–1950

New Europe College, Institute for Advanced Study, Bucharest, Rumania

Musical history between the 1930s and 1950s has been the subject of intense and varied research in both Western European countries and in the USA. However, relatively little light has been shed on this period in the countries of Eastern Europe like Poland, Hungary and in particular Rumania. Now helping to remedy this knowledge gap is an international and multi-disciplinary research center in Bucharest. Over a period of three years talented young scholars, musicologists as well as researchers in other disciplines (such as culture, aesthetics or literary studies) are, for three months each, to investigate their own, thematically appropriate focuses of research in Bucharest and to exchange ideas. They will be assisted here by renowned visiting professors. This will make it possible to fill in any gaps in research relating to those periods under dictatorship. Central issues here might be: aesthetico-stylistic developments, the paradigmatic fates of individual artists, social, institutional and media history-related aspects, exchange processes beyond national borders as well as propaganda and reception history. The results will be collated and presented as part of a large concluding symposium with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. 

October 2014–September 2017
NEC – National University of Music, Bucharest, Rumania 

Further Information: 
www.nec.ro