Held at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland, on 14 July 2017.

Chair: Svanibor Pettan, Secretary General.

In attendance: Ardian Ahmedaja (Multipart Music), Ingrid Åkesson (Historical Sources of Traditional Music), Mohd Anis Md Nor (Performing Arts of Southeast Asia), Zdravko Blažeković (Iconography of the Performing Arts), Leonardo D’Amico (Audiovisual Ethnomusicology), Ruth Davis (Mediterranean Music Studies), Brian Diettrich (Music and Dance of Oceania), Catherine Foley (Ethnochoreology), Barbara L. Hampton (Music and Gender), Ursula Hemetek (Music and Minorities), Gisa Jähnichen (Musical Instruments), Patricia Matusky (Performing Arts of Southeast Asia, replacing Anis during last half of meeting) Don Niles (Executive Board committee for Study Groups), Huib Schippers (Applied Ethnomusicology), Elena Shishkina (Musics of the Slavic World), Velika Stojkova Serafimovska (Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe, Shzr Ee Tan (Musics of East Asia), Amanda Villepastour (African Musics), Carlos Yoder (Executive Assistant).

Opening of the meeting

1. The Chair opened the Assembly at 14:34, welcoming all Study Group Chairs or their appointed representatives. 
2. Pettan announced that the new Study-Group-in-the-making on Music, Education, and Social Inclusion, would be holding its preliminary meeting in London soon after the World Conference. 
3. Encouraged by Pettan, the assembled sang “Happy Birthday” to Jähnichen. 

Minutes of the previous Assembly

4. The minutes of the previous Assembly, published in the October 2015 issue of the Bulletin of the ICTM, were discussed, and no business arising from them was noted.

Introductions

5. All participants introduced themselves. The only Study Groups that were not represented at the Assembly were those on Maqām, Music and Allied Arts of Greater South Asia, Music Archaeology, Music in the Arab World, and Music of the Turkic-speaking World.

Oral reports by representatives

[Editor’s note: the following reports were abridged and sorted by Study Group name, for space and readability reasons, respectively. To learn more about the activities of ICTM Study Groups, see their respective webpages and the Reports section of past, present, and future issues of the Bulletin of the ICTM]

6. African Musics: Villepastour announced that their next symposium would be held in Legon, Ghana, in early August 2018.
7. Applied Ethnomusicology: Schippers announced that their next symposium would be held in Beijing, China in early July 2018, soon after the 3rd ICTM Forum. 
8. Audiovisual Ethnomusicology: D’Amico announced that their next symposium would be held in Lisbon, Portugal in 2018, and that they were exploring the possibility of holding a symposium in China in 2020.
9. Ethnochoreology: Foley announced that their next symposium would be held in Hungary in late July 2018. 
10. Historical Sources of Traditional Music: Åkesson announced that their next symposium would be held in Budapest, Hungary on 12–16 April 2018. 
11. Iconography of the Performing Arts: Blažeković announced that their next symposium would be held in Barcelona, Spain in October 2018, to be followed by another symposium in Salto, Uruguay, in 2019.
12. Mediterranean Music Studies: Davis announced that their next symposium would be held in Essaouira, Morocco, in June 2018. Pettan asked Davis whether the symposium could be held jointly with the Study Group on Music in the Arab World, to which Davis replied that it would be difficult to do so at such a late stage, but that they would be open for organizing joint symposia in the future. 
13. Multipart Music: Ahmedaja announced that, after the positive experience of organizing a seminar in 2014, they were considering holding a new seminar in 2018.
14. Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe: Stojkova Serafimovska announced that their next symposium would be held in Sinj, Croatia, on 15–21 April 2018.
15. Music and Dance of Oceania: Diettrich announced that their Study Group would not meet in 2018, but that they would likely do so in 2019.  
16. Music and Gender: Hampton announced that their next symposium would be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on the last week of August 2018.
17. Music and Minorities: Hemetek announced that their next symposium would be held in Vienna, Austria, in 2018. The dates would be decided at their business meeting later in the conference. 
18. Musical Instruments: Jähnichen announced that their next symposium would be held in Lisbon, Portugal, in April 2019. She added that they were considering renaming their publication, from Studia Instrumentorum Musicae Popularis to SIMP. 
19. Musics of East Asia: Tan announced that the next symposium of their Study Group would be held in Seoul, Korea, in late August 2018. As co-editor of Ethnomusicology Forum, she extended an invitation to all to publish symposium proceedings through it.
20. Musics of the Slavic World: Shishkina announced that their next symposium would be held in Skopje, Macedonia, on 24–28 September 2018.
21. Performing Arts of Southeast Asia: Matusky announced that their next symposium would be held in Sabah, Malaysia, in the third week of July 2018.

Business arising from Executive Board meetings relevant to the representatives

22. Pettan briefly introduced the new Statutes, to be presented for adoption at the General Assembly the following day. 
23. Pettan presented Statute 6 (Study Groups). There were no questions or amendments to it. 
24. Hemetek asked whether participants (i.e., not presenters) at Study Group symposia would be expected to be ICTM members in good standing. Pettan replied that the Memorandum on Study Groups, which Statute 6 referenced, regulated that consideration. He added that Study Group Chairs were welcome to invite scholars from other disciplines, or who might not yet be members of the Council, or both, to attend symposia, as an exception that should not be repeated for any individual.

Discussion of issues of operations

25. Pettan considered of utmost importance that Study Group Chairs plan their symposia in a coordinated fashion, to minimize the likelihood of overlapping dates. 
26. After a long discussion, it was agreed that the Secretariat would create a shared calendar of ICTM events for Study Group Chairs to reduce possible scheduling conflicts. This calendar would be administered by the Secretariat, and a link to it would be shared via the Study Groups mailing list. 
27. Many representatives argued that it was unfortunate that Study Group Business Meetings were scheduled after the conference programme had finished; it was agreed that alternative arrangements (e.g., scheduling them during lunchtime breaks) should be explored for future World Conferences.

Discussion of issues of governance

28. Niles introduced the latest revision to the Memorandum on Study Groups, which had been approved at the Executive Board meeting preceding the start of the World Conference. He explained that the main change to the Memorandum clarified the way by which new Study Groups were established.
29. Schippers asked whether a maximum length of service for Study Group officers was stipulated. Niles and Pettan explained that the Committee for Study Groups had refrained from standardizing that and other similar issues, to better reflect the diversity of governance of Study Groups, and to allow for each Study Group to implement their own best practices, either via bylaws or other means.
30. Foley related that the Study Group on Ethnochoreology stipulates in their bylaws a maximum term of office of four years, allowing for one re-election. 
31. Pettan reminded that all Study Groups could enlist the help of the Secretariat in running their elections, adding that so far all Study Group elections had been held satisfactorily.
32. Regarding the usage of the ICTM logo in Study Group publications, Pettan explained that a new revision of the Guidelines would be forthcoming, that would address the issue.  

Other business

33. Pettan presented relevant slides of the PowerPoint presentation that he would show the following day at the General Assembly, and asked for comments and corrections.
34. Pettan reviewed all the Study Group symposia held since August 2015, and the representatives commented briefly on them. 
35. It was noted that the latest symposia of the Study Groups on Musical Instruments (Sarajevo, April 2017) and on Multipart Music (Nanning, May 2017) were missing from the PowerPoint presentation, and Pettan promised to add them in time for the General Assembly.
36. Pettan suggested that those Study Groups which had new publications could present them at the General Assembly the following day. 
37. It was agreed that the Secretariat would add Study Group Vice Chairs and Secretaries to the Study Groups mailing list.
38. Hemetek considered that Study Groups should play a more important role in future World Conferences and committed, in her capacity of next Secretary General, to transmit the agreement of the Assembly to the Programme Committee of the next World Conference.
39. Niles thanked the assembled for submitting Study Group publication lists that contributed to the online compendium of all ICTM Publications, and for contributing with photos for the the 70th anniversary slideshow.
40. Pettan, as outgoing Secretary General, gave all the participants a small Licitar heart as a token of appreciation and gratitude.

Adjournment

41. The Assembly was adjourned at 16:04. A vote of thanks was offered to Pettan for his service to the Council during the past six years.