History of the Institute
On September 4th 1963, the Ministry of Culture of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia decreed the inception of an Institute for Musical Folk Culture at the College of Education in Neuss under the directorship of Prof. Dr. Ernst Klusen. After lengthy discussions about the infrastructure of the new Institute, it began its work on November 28th of 1964.
Ernst Klusen had previously (in 1938) established the Niederrheinische Volksliedarchiv (North Rhine Folk Song Archive) as one of the youngest departmental folk song archives at the time. The main stock of the Archive consisted of the private collection of Ernst Klusen, containing 300 folk songs collected in the North Rhine area. The collections of the Folk Song Archive at the time of the foundation of the Institute furthermore consisted of the inheritance of Ludwig Erk containing handwritten transcriptions of 3000 folk songs from the North Rhine area, around 200 magnetic tape recordings of folk songs, ca. 500 dances and marches of North Rhine peasant bands in original part books as well as several hand written song books from the North Rhine area.
In 1965, the first issue of the Institute journal "ad marginem- Randbemerkungen zur Musikalischen Volkskunde" was issued. Since then it has been published in 75 issues and is sent to researchers in Germany and abroad twice a year.
In 1986, the Institute became affiliated with the Music Education Faculty of the University of Cologne, whose director had been Ernst Klusen until 1977. His successors were Prof. Dr. Günther Noll, followed by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Schepping in 1992, and Prof. Dr. Reinhard Schneider from 1999 to January of 2014. On October 7th of 2010, the Institute was renamed as Institute for European Ethnomusicology and an affiliated junior professorship was established. In 2014, the Institute celebrated its 50th anniversary with a conference of the Kommission zur Erforschung musikalischer Volkskulturen and a concert presenting regional musical practices. In addition, a jubilee issue was produced addressing fifty years of research at the Institute and containing a comprehensive publication list.
In April of 2015, Prof. Dr. Christian Rolle was appointed new director of the Institute.
© Astrid Reimers