Tune-In Webinar #2: Storytelling & Historical Perspectives

 

This second session will focus on storytelling and historical perspectives as resourceful tools to engage the audience. The discussion will explore various viewpoints, both from creatives and performers, as well as from the institutional side, questioning the relationship between Classical, Early, and World music and their historical roots. 

The goal is to take a closer look at a selection of projects and reflect together on how they are implemented, the questions they raise, and how they inform current audience outreach strategies — identifying challenges, highlighting successes, and exploring potential ways to engage diverse audiences more effectively. 

The session will be highly interactive, offering participants the opportunity to share their insights, engage in discussion, ask questions, and take part in a collective exchange. 

Moderator 

• Davide Grosso, Director of Programmes & Partnerships at International Music Council 

Speakers 

• Mélanie Froehly, Director of Zamus  

• Georg Kroneis, musician, performer, and co-founder of ĀRT HOUSE  

• Jed Wentz, historical actor, declamator and musician, artistic advisor to the Utrecht Early Music Festival 

Programme
 
• 14:30 – 14:35 | Welcome & Session Overview
• 14:35 – 14:50 | Mélanie Froehly, Creating new spaces or challenging the status quo
• 14:50 – 15:00 | Q&A 
• 15:00 – 15:15 | Georg Kroneis: queerPassion – rethinking classical music performing Bach divers
• 15:15 – 15:25 | Q&A
• 15:25 – 15:35 | Break
• 15:35 – 15:50 | Jed Wentz: Reviving Byron’s Manfred for Gens Y and Z 
• 15:50 – 16:00 | Q&A  
• 16:00 – 16:30 | Open discussion  

Presentations 

• Davide Grosso – Director of Programmes & Partnerships at International Music Council (IMC) 

Five music rights activist with an academic background in ethnomusicology, he has carried out extensive field research in Indonesia about music and society and worked in journalism and media. He joined the International Music Council in 2013 where he is in charge of project management and communication. Among other assignments, he is the Secretary of the International Rostrum of Composers and curates the edition of the Music World News. From 2020 to 2022 he chaired the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee, representing a network of more than 400 NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO. Outside the office Davide composes electronic music and writes about music and politics for various magazines and blogs. 
 

• Mélanie Froehly – Director of Zamus 

She was born in France and studied at the Grande École Institut d’Études Politiques in Aix-en-Provence and Berlin. After completing her studies, she fully dedicated herself to cultural management, with a focus on early music. She worked as a cultural manager for Le Concert Lorrain in Metz, followed by a position at the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung in Hanover. She also contributed to projects with lautten compagney BERLIN and Dietrich Henschel, among others.Since the end of 2018, she has been the director of zamus – Centre for Early Music (KGAM e.V.), where she advocates for the interests of the early music community. In her role as Managing Director, she has launched numerous innovative formats and has successfully developed zamus in one of the leading early music institutions. 

Early music is the cultural language that connects us at zamus and forms the foundation of our work – also when it comes to engaging with current issues of contemporary society. Through our symposiums, workshops, and exchanges, we address historically rooted structures of inequality and explore how these can be challenged and transformed within the early music scene today. Our aim is to create a space where new strategies in early music can be imagined, discussed, and actively developed. What we strive for is a genuine curiosity and critical approach about diverse perspectives and global frames—while at the same time fostering a critical understanding of how power operates. In this presentation, we will highlight two symposiums as examples—sharing what we have learned, the challenges we continue to face, and what we hope to pursue in the future. 

• Georg Kroneis, musician, performer, and co-founder of ĀRT HOUSE

Georg Kroneis (b. 1980, Graz, Austria) is an Austrian based musician, performer, and cultural organizer with a passion for mathematics, mountain hikes, and cakes. He holds degrees in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering (TU Graz), Music (Bruckner University Linz), and Social Media Management (MIT Sloan School of Management). Georg has acted in films and series for cinema, television, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, represented by Filmgesichter Berlin. His ensembles Ārt House 17 and Fetish Baroque regularly perform at international festivals like Styriarte Graz, Bachfest Leipzig, Utrecht Early Music Festival, or venues like Opera Antwerp and the Vienna Konzerthaus. Since 2020, Georg chairs the Ārt House association “Contributions to the Understanding and Progress of Culture and Arts”, through which he initiates and produces music theatre projects across Europe. 

• Jed Wentz, historical performer, researcher, assistant professor Leiden University, and artistic advisor to the Utrecht Early Music Festival 

Jed Wentz’s work revolves around the historically informed styles of music-making and declamation. He is interested in the period 1680-1930, from Racine to the advent of sound film. Wentz is professionally active as a performer, teacher and researcher. He is assistant professor at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts of Leiden University, where he supervises doctorates in the field of practice-based research. He is artistic advisor to the Utrecht Early Music Festival and director of the OverActing Festival, Leiden.