A paper at the conference “Critical Perspectives on Music, Education, and Religion” in Helsinki

Organist, musicologist, researcher of the project “Performer’s Polyfunctionality in Musical, Cultural and Social Processes” Eglė Šeduikytė-Korienė has participated at the international conference “Critical Perspectives on Music, Education, and Religion”. The conference took place on August 20–22, 2014, at the Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland. The CPMER conference was held at the Helsinki Music Center, which is currently the home for the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Sibelius Academy. The speakers of the conference were invited to discuss about the ever increasing consciousness of cultural diversity, the relations between education and religion, the presence of religion in music education contexts and the various related political, cultural, social, legal, educational, aesthetic, ethical, and religious tensions. The scholars have approached the suggested topics from the perspectives of various research areas, such as pedagogy, musicology, ethnomusicology, religious studies, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies etc.

The paper by Eglė Šeduikytė-Korienė, „Stability and Variability in Organist‘s Education: The Case of the Lithuanian Organ School“, presented the Lithuanian organ playing school. A special attention was paid to the change of the nature and the mission of this most church-related musical profession from the end of the 19th century to this day. By analyzing the functions and topical issues of the multifaceted profession of a church organist, this type of a musician was presented at the conference as a figure connecting the fields of music, culture and religion.

Prepared as part of the cultural development project “A Performer’s Polyfunctionality in Musical, Cultural and Social Processes” funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (Contract No MIP-095/2013).