Tuesday 1 July - Thursday 3 July 2025
Early Recordings Association (ERA) Conference 2025
Early Recordings Association Annual Conference shall take place from 1 to 3 July 2025, at the 麻豆视频 in Guildford.
Come and see our exciting programme of talks and lecture recitals, delivered by early-career researchers, postgraduate students and established experts who currently work on early recordings in the widest range of genres and perspectives!
Guildford
Surrey
GU2 7XH
麻豆视频 the event

The Early Recordings Association (ERA) is a non-profit association and an international platform for communication between researchers and early recording enthusiasts. ERA is a free source and online platform for general audiences, academic researchers, collectors, and enthusiasts interested in early recordings, currently connecting over 200 members all over the world. ERA events open pathways for researchers, practitioners and enthusiasts to collaborate, and share their knowledge, experience and skills. Early Recordings Association Annual Conference shall take place from 1 to 3 July 2025, at the 麻豆视频 in Guildford. Come and hear an amazing array of papers and lecture recitals, delivered by early-career researchers, postgraduate students and established experts, who currently work on early recordings in the widest range of genres and perspectives.
Programme committee
- Inja Stanovic (麻豆视频)
- (University of Glasgow)
- (First Sounds Initiative)
- (University of Ioannina)
- (National Museum Prague).
Programme
Tuesday, 1 July 2025
9:30 - 11:00 Session 1: Recording historiography
Dr. Ferenc J谩nos Szab贸: Early Recordings and the Challenges of Discography in the 21st Century
Paul Kerensa: The Earliest BBC Recording: The First Monarch on Air
Trayce Arssow (online presentation): Centenary of the Beginnings of Electrical Recording in Great Britain. Paul Voigt鈥檚 Technological Inventions and the Development of His Own Electrical Recording Method, 1925-1927
11:20 鈥 12:20 Session 2: Recording markets
Drs. George Kokkonis, Nikos Ordoulidis: Their Agent鈥檚 Voice: A Letter to HMV in the 1930s 麻豆视频 the Greek Market
Dr. Marija Maglov: Selling Sound Carriers in Serbia/Yugoslavia in the early 20th century
14:00 - 15:00 Keynote address: Professor Mark Katz
15:10 鈥 16:40 Session 3: Analysis
Dr. Ana Llorens: Pau Casals鈥 recording of Bach鈥檚 cello suites: micro-scale shaping in the sarabandes
Dr. Lui虂s Bastos Machado: Continuity and/or Segmentation: Strategies for Formal Articulation in Early Recordings of Johannes Brahms's Piano Music
Dr. L谩szl贸 Stach贸 (online presentation): The potential of complex statistical analyses in characterising performance style
17:00 - 17:45 Workshop 1: Preservation of Phonographic Cylinders in the Czech Republic - WorkFlow and Methodology, National Museum Sound Lab (Filip Sir, Martin Mejzr and Veronika Ga拧parov谩)
Wednesday, 2 July 2025
9:00 鈥 10:30 Session 4: Music and rhetoric
Orestis Papaioannou: 'Speak-against-the-music': Variation and Traces of Epic Singing in Selected Historical Recordings of Die Dreigroschenoper (1928-1930).
Carlota Mart铆nez Escamilla: Music and Rhetoric: Recorded Performances of the Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite II for Solo Cello
Dr. Riccardo La Spina (online presentation): 隆Dobla, Campana! 鈥 New Phonographic Implications for a Zarzuela Vocality in Emigrantes
10:45 鈥 12:45 Session 5: Performance styles
Ella Fallon: Asynchrony in C茅cile Chaminade鈥檚 Recorded Performance Style
Greg Szwarcman: Classical and Romantic Approaches to Conducting Beethoven鈥檚 Symphonies in the late Nineteenth Century
Christos Yiallouros: Fixing Elgar; Re-editing his 1929 Piano Improvisations
Hilary Metzger (online presentation): Comparing different recordings of the same composition: the case of Victor Herbert
14:00 鈥 15:30 Session 6: Lecture recitals
Dr. Marco Ramelli and Enrica Savigni: The Recording by Federico Mompou and Miguel Llobet - The Interplay of Sound and Tactile Perception in Catalan Music
Professor Neal Peres Da Costa: Waxing lyrical: Observations on recording onto wax disc
15:45 鈥 17:15 Workshop 2: Connecting European Archives: A Collaborative Network for Sound Recording Repositories (participants to be announced)
Thursday, 3 July
9:30 鈥 11:30 Session 7: Belgian recordings
Dr. Fa帽ch Thoraval: The project for a phonographic archive in Brussels: Mahillon and the struggle between sound and notation (1899-1900)
Dr. Jeroen Billiet: Couleur Locale, Disque Chantal. Ghentian musicians and the emergence of Belgian creative industries
Joanna Staruch-Smolec: Performer鈥檚 Creative Gesture as a Key in Approach to Early Recordings: The Example of Eug猫ne Ysa每e鈥檚 Acoustic Discs
Matthieu Thonon: The audiovisual collection of the MIM (Musical Instruments Museum of Brussels): from Mahillon to the present day
12:00 鈥 13:00 Session 8: Mechanical music
Dr. Joyce Tang: In search of the pianist: The Role of the Piano in Early 20th Century piano concerto rolls
Achille Kienholz: The fairground musical libraries: mechanical music (not) to be shown
14:00 鈥 15:30 Session 9: Non classical repertoires
Dr. Arja Kastinen: Searching for traces of 19th century Karelian kantele improvisation in early recordings
Professor Hon-Lun Helan Yang: Asian Popular Music鈥檚 Global Network: 鈥淭he Fragrance of the Durians鈥 and its Related Recordings
Dr. Salvatore Morra: 鈥淢usical Orient鈥 in Italy: The Early Recordings (1930s) of the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies (ISMEO)
16:00 鈥 16:45 Workshop 3
Exploring Casals' Sounds: Mechanical recording technologies and cello
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