The documentary series "Gulbenkian Encounters of Contemporary Music" (1977-2002): reflections on archival practices and the benefits of interdisciplinarity in the treatment of documentation

Abstract

The starting point of this article is a training internship that took place at the Gulbenkian Archives (AG) of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), as part of the Postgraduate Course in Historical Archivistics in 2021/22, taught at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa — Faculty of Social and Humanities. The main purpose of this internship was to carry out the technical-archival treatment of the documentary series Encontros Gulbenkian de Música Contemporânea (EGMC) belonging to the FCG Music Service. In total, twenty-six editions of the EGMC occurred between 1977 and 2002, and all documentation is housed at the FCG. Until the date, no technical-archival treatment of this documentation had been carried out, the content of which is extremely important in the context of the Portuguese avant-garde musical scene. This work seeks to reflect on the importance of interdisciplinarity between two areas of knowledge, in particular musicology and archival science, and demonstrate how musicology is useful for the technical-archival treatment of this type of documentation that refers to musical events. Here, musicological contributions to the treatment of documentation are also exposed, highlighting the way in which musicology assists archival practice by making the description of information more intelligible. Based on the observation and nature of the EGMC documentation, some possible approaches are discussed regarding the procedures to be adopted.