[Translations into French and German follow]

Dear Colleagues,

Elections will be held for Branch and Commission officers at the IAML conference in Antwerp (2014). This is a good opportunity for those who want to take a more active role in the work of IAML. You are invited to indicate your interest by contacting the current Branch or Commission Chairs.

A new database has just been released from the Institute of Musicology, University of Fribourg (Switzerland); the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice (Italy); and the Swiss RISM Office, Bern:

Printed Sacred Music in Europe, 1500-1750

Dear Colleagues,

The mid-year Board meeting will take Place 7-8 March in Brussels. One of the most important items on the agenda is the proposal for a revised Constitution and Rules of Procedure. The "Constitution Reform Committee" has been working very conscientiously and has delivered two solid documents to me within the stipulated time. After the Board has had its saying the documents will be published on the IAML website and announced on IAML-L, with an explanatory document summarizing the proposed changes (before 18 April according to the Constitution)...

The Paris-based Museum of Music keeps archives from luthiers, instrument makers and musicians. Several hundreds of these documents are now accessible online. These archives testify to evolutions both in instrument-making and in the musical scene during the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular, they comprise registers from Érard, Pleyel and Gaveau, from Nicolas Lupot, Gand and Bernardel’s instrument-making workshops, and they also include substantial correspondence between luthiers Chanot and Chardon. The main part of these archive collections - comprising extremely fragile documents, sometimes in poor condition - was digitized and uploaded for safe-keeping and accessibility purposes, as testimony.

As we read from our colleague Santie de Jongh on IAML-L earlier this week, there is a new resource from South Africa: the Directory of South African Music Collections (link is external). Its goal is to "collat[e] information on special music collections in South Africa in order to stimulate music research on South African materials in South Africa and internationally." It includes information from 37 institutions and will continue to grow.