Memories from VI World Congress of Music Therapy, Rio de Janeiro, 1990
Memories from Leslie Bunt
Here are a few abiding memories in no particular order:
- Cheryl Dileo, Denise Grocke and I writing the first draft of the constitution for the World Federation on an old typewriter late one night
- Hearing people like Even Ruud and Cheryl Dileo present
- Gianluigi di Franco at the closing ceremony when he set up a vocal improvisation starting with very quiet throat sounds and gradually inviting a very large audience to vocalise (call and response etc) and move, rising to a peak and, through incredible skill working with the audience, returning to a very quiet end as he began. He showed what a master of this kind of music-making working with very large numbers he was.
- The incredible hospitality and kindness shown by our hosts in particular Cecilia Conde and Lia Barcellos with memories of wonderful evenings at people's apartments eating and then rolling up the carpets to dance; being taken to a lampada evening with a live band and people of all ages dancing together - such a liberating experience for a quieter European!
- And the bus that took us from our hotel to the conference centre and which was scheduled to leave at 8am each morning with groups of people from the different countries arriving at different times before, at and after 8am, eventually all of us relaxing into not worrying about being too precise about the time (a little bit of a stereotyped comment about different attitudes to time from different countries I know but it was all rather amusing)
Dr. Even Ruud - Norway
MT. Gianluigi di Franco - Italy
Dr. Edith Lecourt - France
Mr. Joseph Moreno - USA
Dr. Cheryl Dileo - USA
Dr. Leslie Bunt - UK
Memories from Ruth Bright
Immediately before the Conference, I had been in Spain involved in a course at Vitoria, so travelled from Madrid to Rio with the others from that meeting.
My memories of the conference itself are, I am afraid, very sketchy – my mind was so much focused on WFMT affairs that those are almost the only things I remember!
I had been asked to write the Constitution for the Federation, and knew that there might be some difficult moments – and there were!
Well in advance of the conference, I had finally decided to contact Dr Rolando Benenzon, the psychiatrist from Argentina who had been the Chairman since the 1985 conference in Genoa. The reason I needed to contact him was this:
Despite his valuable leadership in those years, I felt that - once the Constitution was in place and the Federation thus became a formal entity - the Chairperson ought to be a professional Music Therapist. He had the grace to agree on this, which took a weight off my mind!
Another section which I knew could well be contentious was the relative status of countries and individual associations. There were potentials for conflict in the sections of the Constitution which dealt with voting, because some countries had multiple societies of music therapy and some had few: Australia had only one, (the Australian Music Therapy Association), USA had two professional associations, UK also had two associations, but one – the British Society for Music Therapy - was a general interest body, and the other was restricted to professionals.
I was deeply concerned that it would thus be impossible to have a genuinely democratic result in voting if each association had its own vote. In the Constitution I had therefore included a proviso that each nation had a single vote and that – where there were multiple groups – this vote could either be divided into fractions, or (preferably!) the groups would co-operate in deciding how the single national vote was to be made on any proposal.
A meeting of all national representatives took place before the conference itself began, and the proposed Constitution was open for discussion. Most of this was quite amicable but – as I had expected – there were difficulties over the voting issue.
One woman said that this was all wrong – each society, no matter how many there were in any one country, should have its own vote. My response was this. - “And reward dissension?” The matter was not discussed any further, and the entire Constitution was approved!
At the final session of the Conference (at which I had been elected as President) it was announced that it was my Birthday! (my 51st, actually, but I do not recall anyone saying this) so the entire audience sang “Happy Birthday’ – all with the same melody but in the language of his or her own country. (Lump-in-throat stuff for me!)
Denise Erdonmez and I had time for some sightseeing, but only for a day or so before we returned home to Australia, happy that there was at last a World Federation, and hopeful that it would bring about useful exchanges of information, as well as good personal relationships between the member groups.
Memories from Isabelle Frohne-Hagemann
Isabelle Frohne-Hagemann, 1990
Thinking of Rio these are my special memories
I remember being the keynote speaker all alone on this huge stage in that huge university auditorium with the audience sitting on the naked concrete floor rows without chairs, because the construction was not finished yet. Actually a cold atmosphere one could think. But the Brazilians are not Germans and they don't care about unfinished things, they seem to feel wonderful in such imperpect situations. Even when this was the case with the technique. My husband was supposed to operate the tape recorder when I would give him a sign during my speech. He sat behind a curtain. When the time came to let the people hear some music examples the technique collapsed and one could only hear something like a roaring lion’s voice. It sounded so funny: German Music Therapy???? I wonder if they still think of my special music therapy example.
I also gave a 5-day workshop about dreams and music therapy. There were no windowpanes in the room and the noise from the street was terrible. Also the condensed water ran from the walls and because of the strong echo in the room it was difficult to understand what people said. There was no interpreter, but one person could help a bit. The equipment was about 2 halves of a xylophone and half a mallet: hard to work music therapeutically with dreams and atmospheres. But again, nobody was upset, we all began to use our creativity potentials and had great solutions. The next day the participants brought all sorts of different sounding materials and we had a great dream week. I had such a great time with all these wonderful people.
The most touching thing for me, however, was: My husband had heard one week before we left for Rio that he had cancer (abdomen) and that he would have to have urgently an operation as soon as we would be back in Germany. So we were quite anxious about the future. But Rio and all these charming people seem to have healing energies: we danced at night Lambada and enjoyed so much to be with the colleagues at that exuberant party that Gabi (I cannot recall her last name) gave for the speakers. That was so healing that my husband (after having another operation of a metastase in the brain) still lives sane and happily with me. Exactly 20 years have passed by now, great!!! So one can see, Rio is an absolutely MUST if one is stuck in negative circumstances.
Memories from Joseph Moreno
Joseph Moreno, 1990
The Rio conference had a lot of positive energy as well as a sense of discovery. The wonderful organization and hospitality provided by the organizers Lia Barcellos and Cecilia Conde reflected all of the warmth and spirit so typical of Brazilian culture.
I recall a wonderful evening reception for foreign guests in an elegant Rio apartment.I well remember a spontaneous vocal duet exchange that evening, with group support, that I put together with my much-missed friend, the late Gianluigi di Franco from Naples, Italy - a special moment of creative music-making."
From left to right: Rafael Colon, Giovanna Mutti, Fausto Cleva, Leslie Bunt, Cheryl Dileo, Joe Moreno, Roberto Reccia, Gianluigi di Franco, Mamour Ba.
From left to right: Marco Antonio Carvalho Santos, [can anyone identify this person?], Isabelle Frohne-Hagemann, Even Ruud, Joe Moreno.
Memories from Even Ruud
Even Ruud, 1990
Since the Brazilians are well known for not being punctual, there was a lot of waiting - which was never boring - but a good opportunity to get to know the many invited international and national guests. So we spent a lot of time talking while waiting for the the bus, lectures to start and so on. I remember serving as interpreter for Alfred Schmölz from German to English, and talking to Edith Lecourt and Gabriela Wagner. The highlight of the trip was dancing samba with Cheryl Dileo in a night club packed with people and a fantastic band and the night caps with Leslie Bunt. Also Norman Goldberg gave me a dinner at a fancy meat restaurant - this was probably his way of paying the royalities for my book "Music Therapy and its relationships....". At one night we went to a private party and when everybody were enjoying themselves at most - at 12.00 sharp Benenzon suddenly stood up and then of course everybody had to go home. I also became good friends with Cecilia Conde and Lia Barcellos - and I have been twice in Rio after this conference.
Dr. Even Ruud (with the finger in glasses) - Norway
MT. Marly Chagas (behind - with glasses) - Brazil
MT. Gabriella Wagner - Argentina
MT. Gianluigi di Franco - Italy
Dr. Leslie Bunt - UK
Concerning my keynote and lectures they were about Music as communication. I remember the huge hall - I was sitting with the audience above me, the microphone was fixed and I could not move my head. We started late with a few people in the audience and when I finished the room was almost full of people. I learned a lesson about simultaneous translation: Never tell a joke! I did, but after the translation nobody laughed and I felt really silly.
The Brazilians were wonderful hosts, friendly and excited about talking to someone who had really seen snow. A girl gave me a scarf she had knitted, the sun was shining at Copacabana, I learned to drink capirinas and forever fell in love with Brazil!
Memories from Gabriela Wagner
This is a photo taken at a lovely party. We had a real good time. I had a great time singing, but the piano player was Roberto Reccia who is an excellent pianist. Giovanna is a great opera singer so you can imagine the wonderful time we had.
The lady sitting in an armchair at the left is Maria Fux. She is a very well know Argentine dancer who still remains several months teaching in Italy. Among other innovations she developed a method to train deaf dancers.
