Panel - Music Museum of Barcelona

Collections, Public Programmes and Remediation: Reflections from the Museu de la Música de Barcelona

Panel

Coord. Jordi Alomar (Director of the Museum)

Friday, 7 November, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Participants

Jordi Alomar (Museu de la Música), Jorge Blasco (Independent researcher), Marisa Ruiz (Museu de la Música), Ilaria Sartori (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya), Ariadna Solé (Office of Religious Affairs, Barcelona City Council)

The Museu de la Música de Barcelona is a public institution devoted to reflection, experimentation and the advancement of knowledge concerning the musical phenomenon and sound art. It safeguards nearly 3,000 musical instruments, objects and works of art from diverse cultures, as well as a historical documentary archive and a sound collection preserving thousands of recordings in various formats.

Conceived during the years preceding the Spanish Civil War through donations and loans from civil society, and open to the public since 1946, the institution inherited and perpetuated an approach to the musical phenomenon from an organological perspective that was predominantly taxonomic and positivist (Museu de la Música, 1991, 2007, 2010).

Currently, and in line with the new museum definition established by ICOM (International Council of Museums, 2022), the Museu de la Música is engaged in a process of critical reflection on its role and mission within a diverse, hybrid and multicultural social framework that seeks to uphold the exercise of cultural rights. Part of this process is articulated through a series of public programmes and curatorial approaches to the collection grounded in the notion of remediation (Deliss, 2012, 2023; Rabinow & Stavrianakis, 2013). These initiatives challenge the canons sustained by institutional logics, enabling openness to change, interpretative conflict and creative reinvention.

This panel presents four current lines of work at the Museu de la Música through the lens of remediation:

“Provenience is Power: African Instruments at the Museu de la Música”

Marisa Ruiz Magaldi, Head of Collections, offers an examination of African presence and its configuration within the museum’s collection of instruments.

“Parallel Lines: An Inquiry into the Archive of the Museu de la Música’s Collections”

Jorge Blasco, researcher, writer and independent curator specialising in archives, is conducting a study on the structure and formation of the museum’s collections archive. This session introduces the narrative of an initial exploration.

“Trànsits: The Music of the Spirit”

Ariadna Solé, anthropologist and Coordinator of the Office of Religious Affairs of the Barcelona City Council, and Jordi Alomar, Director of the Museu de la Música, present the joint programme Trànsits, developed between the two institutions since 2022. Trànsits is a dissemination cycle that explores musical phenomena within the cultural, spiritual and religious practices of some of the city’s resident communities.

“Gnawa Music in Barcelona”

Drawing from the museum’s collection, ethnomusicologist Ilaria Sartori introduces the current practices of Gnawa musicians in Barcelona, as a prelude to the Lila Gnawa event to be held on Saturday, 8 November, as part of the Trànsits programme.

References

Deliss, C. (Ed.). (2012). Object Atlas: Fieldwork in the Museum. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag / Weltkulturen Museum.

Deliss, C. (2023). El museo metabólico. Bilbao: Caniche Editorial.

International Council of Museums. (2022, 24 de agosto). Museum definition. ICOM. https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/

Museu de la Música. (1991). Catàleg d’instruments. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona.

Museu de la Música. (2007). El Museu de la Música de Barcelona a la Casa Quadras, 1983–2001. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona.

Museu de la Música. (2010). Un sol món, músiques diverses: Guia del Museu de la Música de Barcelona. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona.

Rabinow, P., & Stavrianakis, A. (2013). Designs on the Contemporary: Anthropological Tests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.