INTERNATIONAL KODÁLY SOCIETY
REPEATED ONLINE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Saturday, 7 September 2024, 2:10 pm CEST
online (Zoom)
Summary of the Minutes
1. Dr. Jerry-Louis Jaccard, the president of the International Kodály Society welcomed those attending.
Appointing the officials of the Board meeting, approved:
Dr. Jerry Jaccard – Chair
Dr. Zsuzsanna Polyák – teller
Susanna Saw – teller
Krisztina Molnár-Litvai – keeper of the minutes
Because the number of participants was lower than the half +1 member of the Membership, a repeated online General Assembly was held 10 minutes later than the original online General Assembly (Saturday, 7 September 2024, 2 pm CEST).
There were no changes in the Agenda.
2. The minutes of the previous General Assembly were approved.
3. The Executive Secretary gave an overview of the year 2023.
The Board had 4 Board Meetings: in October, March, and June online (Zoom), and one in July in person at the venue of the 26th International Kodály Symposium 2023.
During the year the President and those members of the Board who were responsible for the IKS Symposium also exchanged emails and had online meetings about various matters regarding the 26th International Kodály Symposium 2023, Los Angeles.
The partial election of board members was done during the first half of the year, via a combination of online voting and postal ballots:
• president Jerry-Louis Jaccard was re-elected
• vice-president Susanna Saw was re-elected
• director Miriam B. Factora was re-elected.
• new director is Hilda Mercédes Morán Quiroz (replacing Anikó Fehér)
• new auditor is Róisín Blunnie
• new alternate auditor is Dominika Lenska
Vice-president László Norbert Nemes resigned from his mandate. At the Board meeting in October, the members of the Board accepted the written resignation.
The Board of Directors unanimously appointed Zsuzsanna Polyák as the new Vice President for the period from her appointment until the Annual General Assembly to be held in 2025 when ordinary renewal elections will be held. This was ratified by IKS members in an exceptional online General Assembly.
Finances
The IKS is financially in a better situation thanks to the very generous support of an anonymous private foundation and to the contributions of the Affiliated National Institutional Members, to the help of board members and individual supporters, but it still needs a strong permanent membership.
A detailed financial report was presented.
The assets are held in 5 different places:
• the oldest Hungarian account at OTP Bank (HUF)
• two Hungarian accounts at K&H Bank (HUF and USD)
• an Australian account (Westpac)
• the American membership fees in the US at a restricted account held by OAKE.
The PayPal account was connected in December 2022 with incoming funds going directly to the OTP HUF account. Currently the PayPal account is blocked for technical reasons.
SimplePay is another payment surface to be introduced instead of K&H.
The raised membership fees were introduced on 1 January 2023.
(Individual, Institutional: 40 USD; Student: 30 USD; Supporter: 10 USD)
Website & Webshop
The website is in order. Several smaller malfunctions were detected.
Throughout the year there were blockings of emails from @hotmail.com., yahoo.com, and @live.com.
Because of such difficulties with the current IT provider, we have plans for changing providers. The IKS Office will ask for bids from other IT providers.
IKS has an annual subscription to Zoom Pro to support the online Board meetings and other IKS-related online meetings.
Membership
The Membership Secretary presented the membership report.
Affiliated National Organizations
According to the database at the end of 2023, there were 21 paid-up Institutional members (Affiliated and non-affiliated organizations).
The year 2023 has also seen the revival of some National Organizations.
In 2023 the Membership Committee proposed the creation of a new category called APIMs (Affiliated Prominent Impact Members). The Board is discussing the proposal.
Round Table Discussion for ANIMs – an informal meeting for members of ANIMS was held at the Symposium 2023.
Scholarships
The Sarolta Kodály Scholarship I 2023-2024 was awarded to Tao LIM– Malaysia for studies at the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét. Finally, he refused to accept this scholarship because he was a receiver of another grant as well.
The Sarolta Kodály Scholarship II 2023-2024 was awarded to returning student Peter GUY - Australia for continued studies at the Institute.
The Board decided to have two rounds of application each year for the IKS Scholarship. The first round was in November 2023. The recipients were:
John GOULTER (Australia) - Masters of Music with a Kodaly Pedagogical emphasis, taking place at Redlands University (USA) in the academic year 2023-2024.
Stephanie INSANALLY (Australia) - Primary Level 3 Kodaly course, taking place in Adelaide, Australia
Russel LINDSAY – (Australia) - Cuskelly College of Music Summer School, Brisbane, Australia, between 1-12 Jan 2024.
Alexandra STRADELLA (Italy) - Formazione Kodály Italiana - Three-year Italian Kodály Training - LEVEL 2, taking place in Italy in the year 2023-2024.
Symposia
The 26th International Kodály Symposium – “Connecting Humanity through Music” – was hosted by the Organizing Committee of California OAKE members at the Colburn Music School in Los Angeles, California, USA between 31 July and - 4 August 2023.
IKS members could attend the Symposium In-person and after the event, the Virtual Symposium offered recorded sessions.
Events during the symposium:
• General Assembly
• Advisory Council
• Vikár Forum
• International Katalin Forrai Award – Dominika Lenska (POL), Judith Johnson (AUS)
• Golden Honoree Presentation – honoring (Péter Erdei, Judith Neslény, Deanna Hoerman, Lois Choksy, Kaye Dimock, Vernon Ellis, Connie Foss More, Betsy Moll, Sister Lorna Zemke) All Honorees received special medallions and some of them gave a short speech.
• Round Table Discussion - an informal meeting for ANIMs
The 27th IKS Symposium was announced with a video presentation by the organizers and will be held in Hungary from 4 to 8 August 2025 on the 50th anniversary of the IKS.
New Patron: Miklós Perényi (Hungary)
IKS Participation at:
• Commemoration of the death of Zoltán Kodály at his grave in Farkasréti Cemetery (Budapest).
• International Katalin Forrai Day (4 August 2023, Los Angeles, California, USA).
• Commemoration of the birth of Zoltán Kodály (concert at the Kodály Museum and Music Academy, Budapest)
4. The Annual Report 2023 was approved.
5. The Executive secretary briefly reported on the Denise Bacon Endowment which has been placed on a secure savings account in Hungary since the spring of 2015.
6. The draft Budget for 2024 was approved.
7. The official representatives of the Affiliated National Institutional Members reported on the year 2023.
AIKEM/Italian Kodály Society, Italy, written report to be read
British Kodály Academy, UK, Margaret Oliver - chairperson
Danish Kodály Society, Denmark, written report to be read
Finnish Kodály Society, Finland, written report to be read
German Kodály Society, Germany, written report to be read
Hungarian Kodály Society, Hungary, Márta Sárosiné Szabó – board member
Japanese Kodály Society, Japan, Dr. Shinji Inagi
Kodály Australia KMEIA, Australia, Jason Boron - president
Kodály Society of Canada, Canada, Kyle Martis - director
Kodály Society of Ireland, Ireland, Anne Ralph - chairperson
Kodály Society of the Philippines, The Philippines, Roselle Elinore H. Matias -president
O.A.K.E. National Office, USA, Tom Michalek - president
8. Appointing the members of the Election Committee (Elections 2025)
The General Assembly approved that Roselle Elinor H. Matias (Philippines) and Susan Brumfield (USA) will be members of the Election Committee 2025. One more member is needed but none of the candidates accepted the position. IKS will ask more possible candidates and will return tot he Membership for approval.
9. Report on Future Projects by Dr. Jerry Jaccard
• IKS has a Membership Committee analyzing how to increase and retain membership and one of the way is the APIM (for those local insititutions which can not be national affiliated institutions but have a big impact. The MC is working out the procedure and the application form.
• Funding initiatives.
• Develop a website for the members who will have different access to different sections (research).
• IKS László Vikár Folk Music Research Forum is developing and analyses templates for IKS members. The Forum has been meeting regularly to refine this template. Co-chairs of this Forum are Jerry-Louis Jaccard (USA) and Miriam B. Factora (USA/PHL), other members of the Forum are from different countries: Claude Dauphin (CAN), Pek Lin Chon (MYS), Hilda Mercédes Morán Quiros (MEX), Jenny Brunner (USA), Shinji Inagi (JPNLászló Sipos (HUN), Zoltán Juhász (HUN). They will report on the development of the template at the 27th IKS Symposium, Kecskemét, Hungary.
10. Dr. Zsuzsanna Polyák, chair of the Organizing Committee reported on the next Symposium in 2025:
“Fifty Years of Excellence”
Website and Facebook page have been launched: kodalysymposium2025.hu, constantly updated.
Call for papers that are ready and published on the website.
IKS membership was informed by the newsletter.
Abstract submission starts on 1 October 2024 and ends on 16 December 2024.
Choral rehearsals, concerts, visiting Budapest (Liszt Ferenc Academy – visiting and singing)
11. Varia
The deadline for submitting nominations for the International Katalin Forrai Award: 1 November 2024.
More information on the IKS website and Facebook.
12. There were no questions from the floor.
Dr. Jerry Jacard invited the members to share ideas with the Board.
13. The next General Assembly will be held in Kecskemét, Hungary, during the 27th IKS Symposium. The exact date and the time will be announced later. The Agenda will be posted in due time on the IKS website.
Dr. Jaccard thanked the participants and the presenters, and the meeting was concluded at 3:55 CEST.
Budapest, 7 September 2024