Beethoven 2020/2030: Music in the Digital Present and Future

Date: 
22 Oct 2020
Location: 
online

2020 is Beethoven year: The name of Beethoven is on everyone’s lips, in academia and the media, in concert halls and the recording industry. His 250th birthday offers many reasons to look back at the past.

However, the special event “Beethoven 2020/2030. Music in the Digital Present and Future” to be held by the European national libraries is using this occasion as an opportunity to look forward.

What if Beethoven were alive today? What if he were composing, performing, recording and publishing music in 2020? How would he publish it? And where? How would he adapt music in the light of the new law on adaptations? Would he give it up altogether? How would he use digital archives or online publication platforms such as YouTube and SoundCloud to explore music both old and new? And how could his digital work be collected by public cultural heritage institutions, researched by scientists and made available to music lovers in the future for their use as a part of our cultural heritage?

Representatives of the European national libraries will be discussing these issues on 22 October 2020 from 11:00 - 13:00:

  • Claude Conter and Françoise Molitor (Luxembourg)
  • Frédéric Döhl (Germany)
  • Janet Topp Fargion (UK)
  • Günther Giovannoni (Switzerland)
  • Richard Gjems (Norway)
  • Tonny Skovgård Jensen (Denmark)
  • Ruprecht Langer (Germany)
  • Katre Riisalu (Estonia)