An organization formed in London in 1947, under the name International Folk Music Council (IFMC), with the aims of furthering the study of folk music and dance, and of assisting in their practice, preservation and dissemination. The first meeting was attended by delegates from 28 countries, and since 1948 annual or biennial conferences have been held, bringing together specialists in all fields of folk music; early conferences took place in Ghana and Israel as well as in Europe and the Americas. The first president of the IFMC was Vaughan Williams; he was succeeded by Jaap Kunst, Zoltán Kodály, and, after the latter’s death in 1967, Willard Rhodes, professor of music at Columbia University, followed by Klaus Wachsmann (1973–7) and Poul Rovsing Olsen (1977–82). Maud Karpeles was honorary secretary from 1947 to 1965. The council's secretariat was in London until 1967 when it moved to the Danish Folklore Archives, Copenhagen; in 1969 it moved again, to Canada, where Professor Graham George of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, became honorary secretary.
The IFMC issued a journal (JIFMC) until 1968, which was superseded by a yearbook (YIFMC); it also produced numerous other publications, including bibliographies, directories, songbooks and bulletins. It had an active committee concerned with radio, television, sound and film archives, which met annually, in addition to a number of national committees and study groups. It was associated with UNESCO through its membership of the International Music Council and the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.
In 1981, the secretariat moved to Columbia University in New York, Dieter Christensen was appointed secretary general, and the council was renamed the International Council for Traditional Music. This reflected the expanded and less eurocentric scope of the council's goals and activities, which the term ‘folk’ alone no longer adequately described. The revised rules state that the object of the council is ‘to assist in the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban and dance, of all countries.’
Major conferences outside Europe have since been held in Korea (1981), the USA (1983), Hong Kong (1991), Australia (1995) and Japan (1999), in addition to those in European countries (Sweden/Finland 1985, the German Democratic Republic 1987, Austria 1989, Germany 1993 and Slovakia 1997). Smaller conferences – ICTM colloquia and ICTM study group meetings – are frequently held in all continents. The ICTM continues to have national committees and liason officers as well as working more closely with national scholarly societies in many countries and with other international organizations, especially with UNESCO, to which the council is now directly affiliated. The council edits the UNESCO collection of traditional music and publishes the Yearbook for Traditional Music (until 1981 the Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council), a news bulletin and the Directory of Traditional Music. In 1995, the council had 1400 members in 89 countries and official representatives in 58 countries. Erich Stockmann succeeded Poul Rovsing Olsen as president in 1982, followed by Anthony Seeger in 1997 and Krister Olof Malm in 1999.
See also British Forum for Ethnomusicology, Europe §2, Ethnomusicology
MAUD KARPELES/DIETER CHRISTENSEN