Ružake gila

"Ružake gila" deals with the musical legacy of the singer Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos (1945-2022). The results are published as a digital exhibition, which is available in three languages (Lovara-Romani/German/English). The project is part of MMRC's contribution to the celebrations set up by various organizations to mark the 30th anniversary of the recognition of the Romani people in Austria as a so-called "Volksgruppe" (ethnic minority). MMRC’s collaboration partners are Christiane Fennesz-Juhasz (ethnomusicologist, Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences), Mozes F. Heinschink (Romanes expert) and Manuela Nikolić (daughter of Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos).

 

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Objects and the Archive: Episodes in the Development of Music and Minorities Research

 

 

This digital exhibition takes an object-based, episodic approach to tracing the development of music and minorities research at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology (IVE) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In its first twenty years, the Department of Folk Music Research (Institut für Volksmusikforschung), founded by Walter Deutsch in 1965, focused primarily on Austrian and European instrumental and vocal music within the tradition of European folk music research. During the late 1980s, however, this focus began to expand beyond expressions of “national” folk music and to take into account other ethnic and religious groups within Austria. Starting with a series of externally funded research projects, additional resources were dedicated to the study of minorities within Austria and to engaging in international networks of minority music research. By 2002 the newly renamed Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology (IVE) had become a major center of ethnomusicological research, and a central hub in international networks of minority music research. By 2019, with the founding of the Music and Minorities Research Center, a distinct organizational unit was created at the same university with the goals of advancing the field both nationally and internationally.