The landmark 50th International Viola Congress took place in Paris (yes, France) from January 19th – 23rd, 2026. A day-by-day post-congress blog is delivered to you by Kristofer Skaug.

Day 4: Thursday, January 22nd, 2026
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During these IVC congresses with such a wide-spanning mix of local and international contributions, one of the things I’ve really come to appreciate is the opportunity to try new things. So at the outset of this 4th day of the Paris Congress, we checked in with Anne Caloustian (aka. Graine de Perle) for her workshop called “The body… a Tuning Fork“. Approaching this with an open mind, it was not difficult to follow her lead in a session that featured a series of meditative body balancing / relaxation combined with breathing and resonance exercises, all in her own very personal blend and perspective. With such a busy day ahead, this warming-up felt very worthwhile.

The annual IVS Delegates’ Meeting was held this morning, with a couple of key decisions to be made. Firstly to confirm the results of the IVS board elections from last month – this resulted in the following officer changes:

• Karin Dolman will take over as IVS president as of this week, and her predecessor Jutta Puchhammer assumes the board role of Former President;
• Ames Asbell becomes IVS Vice President (the post formerly held by Karin)
• Sherry Grant will be the new IVS Secretary, taking over from Raquel Bastos

IVS Treasurer Emlyn Stam presented a proposal regarding the minimum Dues to be paid to the IVS by member sections. This minimum amount will from now on be calculated based on each country’s UN HDI (Human Development Index) rating, which ensures a more fair approach to determining the minimum amounts due. This change to the IVS Bylaws was approved unanimously.

The admission of Colombia as a new member section – represented in Paris by Astrid Jerez – was unanimously approved. It was also encouraging to hear that developments are underway to establish a viola society in Austria.

There was a general brainstorm about the evolving role of the IVS. Proposals were fielded for the IVS to act as a hub for international sponsorship deals that could benefit all sections. The IVS is also considering to act as a hub for cooperative efforts in areas where individual member sections are facing problems of scale with international overlaps, such as for example promoting centralized information about viola days, masterclasses and summer courses.

Back in the CNSMDP, I rejoined the “regular” congress programming with Giulio Baraldi‘s lecture on the origins of Max Bruch’s famous Romance (op.85) for viola. Baraldi had been in touch with Jean-Claude Vieux (1944-2019), the son of the famous violist and pedagogue Maurice Vieux (who taught at the Conservatory in Paris). The younger Vieux donated a collection of his father’s personal items to Baraldi, including a letter to Vieux from Max Bruch, in which he proposes to write an Adagio for viola and orchestra. This link between Bruch and Vieux was previously not known, and it seems to explain why Bruch dedicated the Romance to him, although Vieux did not premiere it himself.

From Bruch we moved on to Beethoven: Eric Wong (Vanderbilt University) presented his own transcriptions of Beethoven’s violin sonatas. I found it easy to align with his thesis “that this music transcends instrumentation and shines on the viola“! In particular I enjoyed the movement he played from the very familiar Kreutzer sonata (no.9, op.47), one of my favourites from my somewhat sidetracked path as an amateur violinist. Fortunately the keys are left intact, so the original piano scores remain applicable. The viola parts are said to be available on request, contact prof. Wong through his website.

Ames Asbell (Texas State University) followed with a lecture-recital on compositions for the viola by US composer Alvin Derald Etler (1913-1973). While he was an oboe player himself (not a violist), Etler had notably studied with Paul Hindemith during the war (among others), and wrote a number of chamber music pieces for woodwind ensembles combined with a viola as the sole string player. Two examples from Etler’s oeuvre were performed, his Duo for Oboe and Viola (with Ian Davidson on the oboe) and Sonata for Viola and Harpsichord (with Michelle Schumann), both exhibiting interesting and unusual styles given the period of their composition (1950’s).

A very logical next item on the programme was a recital with duos for viola and bassoon, played by Melissa Meléndez (Venezuela) and Scott Pool (USA). Sadly, this is yet another rare viola+1 combination with an accordingly limited (and/or unknown) repertoire. The bundle Huite Duos (1995) by Philippe Hersant is apparently among the best-known works, to the effect that those pieces were also on the programme at a similar viola-bassoon recital at the 2017 congress in Wellington (by two different players). The Meléndez/Pool duo also played Nuages de Feu by Alexandre Ouzounoff and Three Short Stories by Austrian-American composer Gernot Wolfgang – from which I concluded that we could use (a lot!) more of this. How about a composition contest, co-sponsored by the IVS and the IDRS (International Double Reed Society)?

After a quick coffee break we moved to the magnificent CNSMDP Salle d’Orgue, where Karine Lethiec gave a recital on contemporary French solo viola music. Building forth on the ideas that inspired her MUSICoMAN project (presented at the 2024 congress in Campinas), these were “works that question the origin of the creative musical gesture and propose to link it to its roots, to the most distant artistic gesture“. This exploration into the very distant past (and its archaeological relics) is clearly a very productive source of musical ideas!

Now Emlyn Stam and the New European Ensemble (NEuE) took the stage to give the international premiere performance of Martijn Padding’s viola concerto Ma vie en couleurs (2025). The actual world premiere took place on “home turf” (Netherlands) last year, but I felt that the concerto had grown both on the ensemble and me for this second outing. The composer himself was present in Paris, and both the performance and composition received loud acclaim.

This quite busy programme left us hungry, but we couldn’t eat just yet – first maestro Dolman summoned all available violas for a full-hour orchestra rehearsal / walk-through of the Raiders project, which will (hopefully) be one of the highlights tomorrow. The subsequently highly urgent feeding session took place at a reasonable-looking pasta & pizza restaurant near our apartment downtown. No rest for the wicked, so back we went to the CNSAD Theatre (fortunately at this point only 100m away) to catch …

… yes, Kim Kashkashian‘s much-anticipated evening recital! Garth Knox joined her in two sets of Bartók duos, while she filled in the rest with Unknow Pieces (sic) for solo viola by Kurtág – unfortunately I did not get my hands on any program notes, so it is not clear what was meant by this, even if the title had been a typo and “unknown” had been Kashkashian’s original assessment of their status. As for Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages, these are of course by now a very familiar and frequently-programmed title.

I crashed on my bed much earlier than usual, this was an intense day, and tomorrow we have to be up really early for our rehearsals at the Opera Bastille!

Disclaimer #1: Any opinion expressed here is the author’s own, not that of the DVS.

Disclaimer #2: Due to the incredibly rich programme at this congress, it was physically impossible to see (and hence report from) more than perhaps 25-30% of all the events. A high level summary (listing also all of the Dutch contributions) is given on this page, and more details can of course be found on the official congress website.

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