The International Conference Music Renaissance in Global History and Contemporary Practice explores the role that music played between the 14th and 17th centuries in Europe’s cultural transformation, shaping identities, aesthetics, and social practices. Yet the Renaissance was far from an isolated European phenomenon—its musical innovations emerged through expanding imperial and cross-cultural encounters via trade, diplomacy, and migration, linking Europe with Africa, Asia, and the Americas. From the transmission of modal systems through Islamic regions to the adaptation of instruments, rhythmic patterns, and the influence of performance practices from non-European traditions, music offers a lens to understand the Renaissance through the perspective of global history.
In recent decades global history has emerged as a fast-growing discipline. As Sebastian Conrad notes, it responds to questions about modern globalisation, to social challenges, and the need for more inclusive and diversified narratives and voices of the past. To understand the entanglements and networks that shape realities beyond the borders of nation states, it has become necessary to explore the role of “exchange relationship” and to rethink historical categories and periodisation.
Drawing on Accademia Chigiana’s historic role in re-evaluating Early Music repertoires in the early twentieth century, this conference seeks to reaffirm the Accademia’s leadership in promoting scholarly debates on Renaissance music and its performance in the 21st century. A further aim is to challenge Eurocentric narratives and reimagine the foundations of Renaissance music historiography, exploring new approaches to studying and performing its repertoire, and highlighting early musical heritage as a resource for intercultural dialogue.