Music listening, performance and composition are strongly bound up with memory processes. Upon hearing music, one might for example be reminded of its title and melody, or remember the musicians and circumstances in which that music was once listened to. Some people may also be able to remember and reproduce a single timbre, a range of sounds, a certain rhythm, or recreate similar patterns. Music could also help strengthen our memory and help solidify what we have learned. During a listening session, different brain areas develop, related to memory, emotionality and the motor sphere. These are the most obvious aspects of memory associated with music. But there are many other questions associated with neuroscience that this conference aims to investigate. How important is memory for the development of musical skills? What happens in the brain when a musician improvises? What are the therapeutic effects in motor rehabilitation and the treatment of cognitive and neurodegenerative diseases? Cognitive neuroscience examines the different processes that are activated during musical composition, performance and also listening and reception. How important, furthermore, is collective memory for the creation of the musical identity of a particular society? And how important are mnemonic processes in the critical development of the musician? As one can see, the relationship between music and memory aims to be investigated in a broad sense, going to grasp the purely cognitive and sensorial aspects, as well as those that have an impact on a cultural level.

The integration of music with multiple disciplines is of great relevance to the sustainability of the music profession. It constitutes a strong counterweight to the predicaments confronting musicians as their profession evolves in new ways that are socially, culturally, politically, economically, and technically advanced. This research project addresses the above phenomenon by celebrating the lives and works of musicians who successfully integrated their artistic vocation with other pursuits in the liberal arts and scientific fields. Their independent, forward-looking career paths are examined both with critical interest and considering their possible applications to the current state of the music profession. The project consists of four parts divided in multiple sessions:

(a) Guilds & Labor Unions. Contributions discussing the evolution of the music occupational systems vis-à-vis those of other professions.
(b) The Making of a Professional Musician. Critical overviews of the educational institutions created for the formation of professional musicians and their rules, regulations, and pedagogical methodologies.
(c) Case Studies, dedicated to the lives and works of some celebrated self-styled musicians whose career paths integrated the practice of other professions.
(d) The Future of the Music Profession

Through conferences, study days, and publications, the project aims (over a period of three years) to investigate the relationship between music and madness from a historical perspective, and more specifically how the concept of music as a therapeutic tool came about and what the theoretical foundations, methodological developments, and uses of music as a resource for healing have been throughout recent history (18th-20th centuries). Another important aspect and subject of investigation will be the analysis of the places and social contexts (sanatoriums, mental hospitals, boarding schools, etc.) in which this relationship is carried out and the sociological consequences that this practice has developed in the contemporary fabric (events, concerts, etc.).

From the second half of the 18th century, female composers began to participate more actively in musical life. They were often also virtuosos on instruments and/or excellent singers, teachers, and founders of music schools. The growing body of musicological literature, together with academic editions of music produced between the late 19th and first half of the 20th century, largely
ignored these women and their works. In recent decades, new perspectives in musicology have restored the presence of women composers to music history, and their works have begun to receive the analytical attention they deserve.