Group photos with the hosts and presenters © ICHCAP

ICHCAP and #HeritageAlive held a book launching event during the ninth session of the General Assembly for the 2003 Convention, which took place from 5 to 7 July 2022 at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris. The event celebrated the publication of Traditional Musical Instruments which was published in 2021 though, postponed the event due to COVID-19.

Since 2017, ICHCAP has been publishing the Living Heritage Series biannually with #HeritageAlive to raise the visibility and viability of intangible cultural heritage worldwide. Traditional Musical Instruments is a third collaborative result and the book launching event was organized to share the experience, achievements, and outcomes of the past two years and commemorate the recent publication.

Participants dancing to the accompaniment of the performer © ICHCAP

The event took place on 5 July. About 80 people in the ICH field and many diplomatic delegations joined the event to celebrate the publication. The event kicked off with a welcoming speech by Mr. Jisung Kim, Director-General of ICHCAP, and Susanne Schnüttgen, Chief of the Capacity Building and Policy Unit of Living Heritage Entity with congratulatory remarks. Including Mr. Eivind Falk, Editor-in-Chief of #HeritageAlive, the authors of the book made presentations with some music. They focused on diverse ICH factors related to music, such as crafts skills as musical instruments, oral traditions as lyrics, and performing arts as artwork. On the dancefloor of music made naturally proven, music shares thoughts and emotions among community members who play the instruments and enjoy it.

Meanwhile, storytelling was selected as the next volume in the series. A call for paper is ongoing with the due date of 1 October 2022, and the outcome will be published in 2023.