Music and migration

Since the 1970s, the Institute for European Ethnomusicology has been researching the musical and social activities of migrants and BIPOCs living in Germany. In 1970, Wilhelm Schepping wrote about a concert with "guest workers" in Neuss. Ernst Klusen made a recording of Turkish music in 1972.

In a more extensive study from the mid-1980s, a large number of groups that cultivate the musical traditions of their homeland were documented using video and audio recordings in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Neuss regions (Hegewald (1987): Studies on the musical practices of guest workers or other minorities in the Federal Republic of Germany). The first results were presented at the Symposium on Musical Folk Culture in the Contemporary City (Cologne 1988). In field research in the Cologne area from 1988, the activities of migrants in intercultural contexts took up greater space (Reimers (1994): Amateur music making in Cologne, Chapter 8.2. Migrants). In 1995 Astrid Reimers had a teaching position in the Cologne seminar for music education on the topic of “Music and Migration in Cologne”. The aim of the seminar was for music teaching students to get to know music from different cultures through field research. The institute's further research focused in particular on the extent to which opportunities for social integration exist in folk musical culture, amateur music-making, and singing tradition as a socially integrative field (Hildesheim Conference 1994, Noll 1996: Folk musical culture as a social opportunity; Reimers 2008: Amateur music-making as a platform for the dialogue). In the years that followed, interculturality, migration, and cultural diversity in the religion also came into focus (Schepping 2001: Intercultural aspects of the New Spiritual Song; Reimers 2010: Temple, synagogue, church and mosque - religious communities as places of music-cultural activity (in Deutsch)).

The interactive map of regional music practices “Hör Köln - Listen to Cologne”, a project of the institute since 2018, also includes music from different cultures.

In 2021, Eckehard Pistrick took over the junior professorship with the denomination “Music and Migration” at the institute, organizing numerous events, seminars, and concerts on the topic. An overview of this work can be found here.

In 2023, Rose Campion took over as junior professor and regularly invited musicians with migration experience to her seminars. In 2024, Sheyda Ghavami and Rose Campion researched the life stories and working conditions of Kurdish musicians in Germany.