Musik in Krisenzeiten: Pandemien; Musique en temps de crise : Pandemies; Musica nei tempi di crisi: Pandemie; Music in Times of Crises: Pandemics

The present volume is dedicated primarily to the theme of “pandemics”. In the first contribution, our keynote entitled “Music (as) Labour: Crises and Solidarities among Greek Musicians in the Pandemic”, Ioannis Tsioulakis from Queen’s University Belfast discusses the challenges Greek musicians faced already before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the economic-financial recession. After the recession had already plunged many musicians into precarity, the pandemic exacerbated the situation, depriving them of two aspects essential for their material and creative survival: the access to financial earnings and to their social networks. These networks had previously alleviated the difficult circumstances of some musicians through a sense of collegiality and support of various kinds. In his article, Tsioulakis addresses the high emotional and imaginative value that musicians bring to society and pleads for this contribution, but also its provision, implementation and preparation, to finally be fully recognized, accepted and financially rewarded as a form of work.In their contribution “Musik als Krisenprävention im Corona-Lockdown. Erkenntnisse aus einem musiktherapeutischen Projekt in Österreich”, the Austrian researchers Michael Huber, Hannah Riedl, Manuel J. Goditsch, Irene Stepniczka and Thomas Stegemann from the University of Music and Per-forming Arts Vienna and the Music Therapy Research Centre Vienna analyze the results of the music therapy project lieblingslied.at, which was conceived during the Corona lockdown. The project con-sisted in arranging phone calls between therapists and interested participants to listen to a favourite song together live or via recording. After the phone call, the participant had the possibility of talking to the music therapists (or music therapy students) about what they had heard together and about the listening experience. Although the project did not arouse as much interest as originally hoped for, the reactions nevertheless showed that in times of social isolation and psychological stress, depending on the personal prerequisites and conditions of the participants, experiencing music together could have a positive and regulating emotional effect across different population strata.Lisa Herrmann-Fertig is research assistant at the Nuremberg University of Music in the field of music ecology. Her article focusses on the connections between sound, environmental pollution and disasters and the connections between musicology and these processes. She discusses different approaches to understanding sound and suggests the complex ways in which sounds, music, nature and culture are interconnected. In this context, she pleads not only for a new and different sensibility of listening, but for a general openness of musicology to engage with nature and environmental discourses and crises, to reflect on the manifold relations between music and crises, such as the Corona pandemic, and to contribute to “understanding” and “defusing” them.