Emmy Noether junior research group "Music History on Stage"
Dr Anna Langenbruch, University of Oldenburg

Bonn, 28 September 2021, 14:00-18:30 hrs

Music theatre and the history of knowledge can be related to each other in many ways
: A history of knowledge of music theatre can ask, for example, how knowledge about
music theatre and the associated practices of composing, singing, playing or
listening is produced, discussed and disseminated. What concepts of knowledge play a role here?
Which authorities guarantee their recognition? When and how does music theatre use research
or drive it forward (for example in the field of stage technology or architecture)? In this context,
the question of the genre's
relationship to reality, which has often been asked in the history of opera, is also exciting. In a way, this question leads to a second major
area that has been increasingly researched in recent years: the history of knowledge in music theatre.
Music theatre is viewed here as a medium of knowledge transfer, its transformation and circulation
. How, for example, is music-historical knowledge negotiated and communicated in so-called music history theatre
? How can the corresponding knowledge cultures be analysed ethnographically
? What role can music theatre play for public history (and vice versa)?
Continuing these thoughts, music-theatrical negotiations of science also come
into view, as music theatre has been developing its own
form of popular history of science in science operas since the 17th century.

The symposium builds on the work of the Emmy Noether junior research group
"Music History on Stage" and at the same time looks at the wider research environment of
music theatre and the history of knowledge. To this end, the symposium combines approaches from music history,
theatre studies, philosophy and the history of knowledge and science. For example, how
do aesthetic and epistemic patterns of perception and interpretation
relate to each other? How do the corresponding concepts of knowledge relate? The symposium operates with a broad
concept of music theatre, understood here as a collective term for all those genres that combine musical
and theatrical-dramatic elements. At the centre is the question of how
considerations from the history of knowledge can be made fruitful for music theatre research
and, conversely, what the music (theatre) sciences contribute to the interdisciplinary history of knowledge
.