Abstract
Early recordings are popular research sources, preserving playing styles of past eras.
Accordingly, performers and musicologists have been using early recordings in research
since the 1980s. The largest collaborative e ort in the field thus far - the AHRC- funded
research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM, 2004-2009) -
produced a pioneering handbook (Leech-Wilkinson 2009), and audio visualization
software for the analysis of recordings as sources of historical performance (Sonic
Visualizer). Since the conclusion of CHARM, scholars continued to produce innovative
work, introducing new methods for the study of early recordings. Even so, the field
lacked a digital platform which would host this research, o ering access to historic
recordings while encouraging and supporting collaborations between researchers in the
field. Early Recordings Association (ERA) brings together present and future of historic
recordings research, with the intention of educating and informing researchers and
students, while opening innovative research paths in the field of early recordings
research. This talk presents ERA as a research centre and a permanent digital research
133
platform which will act as an international hub for research activities structured around
early recordings, pointing out the necessity for open-source platforms in context of the
university-led research centres. It promotes the need for education, collaboration, and
scholarly dialogue, through opening the research to the non-academic audiences,
creation of opportunities for collaborative knowledge exchange, and advancing
research practices.
Eva Moreda Rodríguez teaches Musicology at the University of Glasgow. She has
published widely on the history of Spanish music during the Franco dictatorship and in
exile (Music and exile in Francoist Spain, Ashgate 2015; and Music criticism and music
critics in early Francoist Spain, Oxford University Press, 2017), and most recently on the
early history of recording technologies (Inventing the recording: The phonograph and
national culture in Spain, Oxford University Press, 2021)
Inja Stanović is a pianist and a researcher, specialising in early recordings and historic
performance practices. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Early Sound
Recordings: Academic Research and Practice (Routledge, 2023), research album
'Austro-German revivals: (Re)constructing Acoustic Recordings' and the article for
Music & Practice. Inja currently works as Senior Research Fellow at the University of
Surrey.