Conference Agenda

Chasing the right version, reading between the lines, cutting, adding, editing – How can the cooperation between the music library and dramaturgy department of an opera house influence the outcome, especially when dealing with an opera’s multiple different versions or scarce material? What are the challenges in research, copyright laws but also in the communication structure and politics in a modern opera house and how is the collaboration of dramaturgs and librarians a key component to an opera’s success? Using three examples out of real life productions of the Aalto Theater Essen, Joseph Bologne’s opera „L’amant anonyme“, the operetta gala „Einmal möchte ich was Närrisches tun“ and the ballet „The Hunchback of Notre Dame“ we illustrate the participation of the two departments in the creative, organisational and administrative process and we highlight the special aspects of „patchwork“-pieces and scores.

This paper outlines the historical development of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOSR) and presents its recordings as key sources for Slovak musical culture. Founded in 1929 as part of the emerging radio broadcasting service, the orchestra evolved from a small ensemble into a representative professional body. Its history reflects the shifting social, cultural, and technological conditions in which radio functioned as an important cultural institution and mediator of musical life. With advancing recording technologies, live broadcasting was complemented and later replaced by systematic sound documentation. The paper examines how these transformations influenced archival practice and shaped the scope of preserved material, which today forms one of the largest collections of orchestral recordings in Slovakia. The discographic section focuses on SOSR’s collaboration with the state-owned label Opus and later with international companies such as Naxos and Marco Polo. These partnerships produced major projects, including cycles of symphonies by Dmitry Shostakovich and Franz Schmidt and representative recordings of Slovak orchestral and operatic repertoire. Such recordings serve as essential sources for studying the orchestra’s interpretative practice and repertoire strategies. The final part addresses current archival and legal challenges related to the preservation, digitisation, and accessibility of historical recordings, as well as the need for systematic management and the development of modern digital sound archives. The paper highlights the SOSR sound collection as a multilayered source base offering new perspectives on the history of Slovak music and raising crucial questions concerning the stewardship of audio heritage in the twenty-first century.

This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the performance history of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) from 1978 to 2025, drawing on the orchestra’s comprehensive online concert catalogue. Using a dataset of over 1,000 individual works performed across over 700 concerts in 51 countries, the study examines long-term programming trends, composer representation, and the geopolitical dimensions of repertoire choice.

Methodologically, the research employs data extracted from the concert catalogues and organized in structured spreadsheets, to investigate key questions: How has the orchestra’s programming balanced canonical European masterworks with contemporary and diverse voices? What do patterns in composer nationality, gender, and era reveal about the EUYO’s evolving artistic mission and its role as a cultural ambassador for European integration? The analysis highlights the tension between educational imperatives—exposing young musicians to a core symphonic canon—and a diplomatic mandate to represent a unifying, diverse Europe.

The findings contribute to music library and digital humanities scholarship by demonstrating how performing arts archives can be leveraged to trace institutional identity, assess diversity and inclusion in programming, and understand the role of large-scale youth ensembles in cultural policy. This case study also offers a model for the analysis of similar collections of performance ephemera, showcasing how data-driven methods can uncover narratives of canon formation, cultural diplomacy, and artistic programming within musical institutions.