Music Lexicon of Switzerland (MLS)
A public conference on November 23-24 and an associated writing workshop will present two facets of the new music lexicon of Switzerland: its scientific foundations and its anchoring in the general public.
Switzerland's music history is a treasure chest filled to the brim with all kinds of gems to be discovered. But all too often these jewels can only be found by trawling through archives and libraries or have not yet been unearthed at all. For example, who knows the composer and music publisher Emil Ruh, or the composer and psychoanalyst Elisabeth Spöndlin? While Emil Ruh's descendants would have to be consulted, the search for information on the latter is not difficult: the fascinating composer Elisabeth Spöndlin is already listed in the MLS. The modern e-encyclopedia makes the treasure hunt much easier and opens up access to Swiss music history at the click of a mouse.
Scientificity, multilingualism, accessibility
The MLS is a project of the Swiss Music Research Society (SMG). It is supported by a Board of Trustees of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHS) consisting of Irène Minder-Jeanneret (President), Caiti Hauck (Vice-President, University of Bern), Cristina Urchueguía (University of Bern), Sandra Tinner (Swiss Music Council), Marco Jorio (former Editor-in-Chief of the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland), Pio Pellizzari (former Director of the Swiss National Sound Archives), Christiane Sibille (ETH Zurich), Stefanie Stadler Elmer (University of Zurich), Moritz Kelber (University of Augsburg). From the outset, the Board of Trustees conceived the MLS as a modern reference work and formulated four objectives. The first is to catalog and document music culture and history, and the second is to provide scholarly articles containing text, sound and images that are available in various languages. The third goal is unlimited public accessibility and sustainable preservation of the cultural heritage, and the fourth is cooperation with various institutions. In order to introduce the MLS and awaken the desire to write, the Board of Trustees is organizing a conference and a workshop in November.
Conference: The MLS as an e-Lexicon
The conference "Music in Switzerland in the past and present: The Swiss music lexicon for the 21st century" will take place from 23-24 November and offers a varied program. Representatives from over 15 different encyclopaedias, databases and digital information projects such as RISM, Memoriav, Wikipedia, Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon online and many more will present their work and discuss the challenges and opportunities of music reference works in the 21st century. In addition to the conference, to which all interested parties are welcome, the MLS is also offering a workshop on writing lexicographical articles. In the workshop on November 25 in Bern, the MLS team will teach how information from club and family archives, for example, can be processed in order to turn it into an MLS article. In the spirit of cultural participation, the MLS is calling for participation in writing articles: Did her grandfather compose? Was her aunt a music publisher? All these testimonies and many more are part of Switzerland's music history and can find their way into the MLS through their participation (see p. 53).
Le Dictionnaire de la musique en Suisse gives access to the history of music in Switzerland to all those who are interested. In order to present the DMS and to encourage people to contribute articles, its editorial team is organizing a conference and a workshop in November. The conference " La musique en Suisse, hier et aujourd'hui : Le Dictionnaire de la musique en Suisse pour le XXIe siècle" will take place on November 23 and 24, with speakers representing a quintet of lexiques, data bases and digital information projects. On November 25, the MLS team will organize a workshop to learn how to write dictionary articles; all interested parties are invited.
l Dizionario della musica in Svizzera apre l 'accesso alla storia della musica svizzera a tutte le persone interested. In order to present the MLS and to satisfy the desire to write, the Consiglio di fondazione is organizing a conference and a workshop from 23 to 25 November. La conferenza avrà un programma vario, con la partecipazione di rappresentanti di oltre 15 enciclopedie, banche dati e progetti di informazione digitale. In the workshop, the MLS team will teach how to write articles in the online library.
