General Assembly of the WMA

Edinburgh University, French Class Library, 59 George Square

Edinburgh, UK

Walter Bernhart (Graz), presiding, 18 August 2007 at 9.30 am

21 members in attendance

Opening

Walter Bernhart welcomed all present and noted the 10 years of the existence of WMA. He observed that the membership had grown from 26 in 1997, to 54 in 1999, to 103 in 2007. There are 24 different nations represented in the current membership of WMA.

Word and Music Studies (WMS) book series published by Rodopi Press. Two volumes have been released since 2005:

WMS 7 (2005): Essays on Music and the Spoken Word and on Surveying the Field (Eds. Suzanne M. Lodato and David Urrows)
WMS 8 (2006): Ulrich Weisstein. Selected Essays on Opera (Ed. Walter Bernhart)

WMS 9: Proceedings from the 2005 Santa Barbara conference (Ed. David Urrows)
WMS 10: Regula Hohl Trellini. The Gaze of the Listener: English Representations of Domestic Music-making (Ed. Walter Bernhart)
WMS 11: Proceedings from 6th WMA Conference, Edinburgh, UK (Eds. Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf)

Werner Wolf, WMA Treasurer, presented the Financial Report 2005-2007 reviewed by WMA Auditors David Urrows and Klaus Zerinschek. It shows a balance of approximately 400 Euros after deductions of 3000 Euros for WMS 9 and 400 Euros for the Edinburgh Conference.
Werner Wolf expressed concern about the tardiness in payment from some members. After a discussion, it was agreed that after a period of two years of non-payment membership terminates.
There was unanimous acceptance of the Treasurer’s Report and a vote of thanks to Werner Wolf was approved.

Membership fee: Given the good fiscal health of the Association, Werner Wolf recommended no increase or restructuring of the membership fee. This was unanimously approved by all present.
The election of Peter Dayan and Mary Breatnach, organisers of the Edinburgh conference, as honorary members was unanimously approved. An official expression of thanks for the perfect organisation of the conference was expressed to the new honorary members.
Walter Bernhart reminded all present that, following an earlier decision by the General Assembly, all speakers at WMA conferences are required to become members of the Association.

A vote to keep the current Executive Board was approved unanimously. The current Executive Board is:

A unanimous vote was recorded to retain the same auditors, David Urrows and Klaus Zerinschek.
The following Advisory Board was approved unanimously:

The Newsletter will appear shortly (Ed. David L. Mosley) with a Message from the President, an updated list of Members’ Publications, and new Forum Papers from WMA conferences. David’s editorial work was gratefully acknowledged.
An invitation will be sent out for submission of Edinburgh Forum Papers to be included in the next Newsletter.
Members were invited to submit (no more than three) recent publications in the Word and Music Studies field for inclusion in the next Newsletter.
The publication of WMS 9, the Santa Barbara Proceedings, is expected for late 2007/ early 2008.
WMS 10 (Regula Hohl Trillini. The Gaze of the Listener: English Representations of Domestic Music-making) is expected to come out in spring 2008.
WMS 11, the Edinburgh Proceedings, will be edited by Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf.
The next WMA conference will be held in Vienna (Gerold W. Gruber, organiser), at the University of Music and the Performing Arts. The subject of the conference will be: “Word/Music Performativity”. After some discussion, it was decided to explore the possibility of holding the conference in the middle of June 2009, to coincide with performances at the Wiener Staatsoper and other cultural events.

There was some discussion about the possibility of holding the 2011 WMA Conference in Santa Fe to coincide with the dates and program of the Santa Fe Opera Festival.

[Meanwhile Deborah Weagel has gratefully confirmed her willingness to organise the conference.]

The meeting of the General Assembly of the WMA adjourned at 10:30 am

Minutes submitted by Michael Halliwell, Vice-President, in lieu of David L. Mosley, Secretary, who was unable to be present.

Signed: Michael Halliwell, Vice-President

Signed: Walter Bernhart, President