A REPORT ON CIVIS Summer school “Sacred spaces-sacred sounds”: the Occidental Mediterranean (Universidad Autonoma, 10-14/7/23)

The Greek team (Professor Anastasia Georgaki, Ass. Professor, Areti Andreopoulou, George Dedousis, PhD Canditate, Master’s students (Vassiliki Sarantari, Dimitri Remdianaki, Kontoupoulou Agneliki, Maria Kritsiotaki, Irene Bossinaki, Cleo Anagnostopoulou), which participated at the CIVIS Summer School Sacred sounds-sacred spaces: the Occidental Mediterranean, returned yesterday from Madrid where they lived a wonderful experience on the past auditory experience and acoustic phenomena of the sacred performance in Madrid.

It was a full week with many lectures, workshops, soundwalks, performances and acitivities.

Many congratulations to the organizing committee from the Universidad Autonoma Professor Jose Luis Carles, Ass. Professot Luis Calero, Alejandro Rodriguez Antolin and Christina Palmese for the hospitality and full of interest program!!!

The main subject of the Summer school is an interdisciplinary approach of historical musicology, music performance, room and virtual acoustics, as also soundscape composition through the reconstruction of the past auditory experience and the acoustics phenomena of sacred performance spaces of the Iberian Peninsula as also to learn to appreciate its ancient and contemporary soundscapes.

https://civis.eu/en/civis-courses/sacred-sounds-sacred-spaces-the-occidental-mediterranean

The first CIVIS summer school “Sacred Sounds, Sacred Spaces”, organized by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, was completed with great success in Greece last July from July 11 to July 15.

https://hub.uoa.gr/en/civis-summer-school-sacred-sounds-sacred-spaces-review/

The second Blended Intensive Programme “Sacred Sounds, Sacred Spaces: “The Occidental Mediterranean” is the continuation of the one made last year entitled “Sacred sounds, sacred spaces”, a highly innovative educational module that explores the interplay between music, sound, and space in relation to the experience of sacredness in historical and synchronic perspective.
The selected master’s and PhD students came from different scientific areas (Philosophy, Neurosciences, Architecture, Biophysics, Humanities, Musicology) of seven institutions (the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, the Stockhom University, the University of Bucharest, the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, the University of Glasgow, and La Sapienza – University of Rome). Τhe climate of cooperation combined with the creativity and broadened horizons of the students in collaboration with the professors, led to the production of beautiful and creative works at the end of the course.

During the virtual part of the course from 13 to 27 of June 2023 students understood the acoustic phenomena in performance spaces, and learnt to appreciate the acoustics in sacred places. Students had the opportunity to conduct acoustic data collection (recordings and acoustic measurements) of the natural acoustics of places of significance and listened to sounds coming from the natural landscapes. They explored the roots of Mediterranean music history by connecting sounds of all times to actual technologies of sound treatment and design. They came into touch with the Pre-Roman and Roman archaeomusicology in the Iberian Peninsula: vocal and local environments, according to archaeological, iconographical and textual sources as well as with the Medieval liturgical repertoires in the Peninsula, such as: Codex Calixtinus, Codex Las Huelgas, Sacred Marian Chants of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. (Professors Jose Luis Carles, Professro Anastasia Goergaki, Professro Stean Morent, Ass. Professro Areti Andreopoulou, Ass. Professors Luisc Calero ,etc.)

They learnt about the science of the singing voice in sacred spaces, byzantine singing in sacred medieval spaces, augmented choir in historical spaces and modelling singing voice, virtual acoustics and the sound of cicadas. It also was mentioned the relationship between music and soundscape, sound mapping, planning, conservation and reconstruction. Last but not least students were informed about music and soundscape, acoustic ecology, ecological aesthetics, everyday sonic experience and cultural heritage issues around architecture, soundscape reconstruction, simulation and modelling and of the religious oration and ceremonial spaces of the sufi jewish and musulman music.
The physical mobility part took place in Madrid from 10 to 14 of July 2023. During this summer school, students, apart from the lectures they attended at the main Centro Cultural La Corrala, they also took a walk at Lavapiés with the Artistic Director and Dramawalker Maria Caudevilla. They have also visited Cristo del Olivar Church, where a measurement of this church took place and a subsequent virtual acoustic reconstruction by Areti Andreopoulou, as well as an experiment with the voices