For the first time in Rome the the five-yearly congress of the International Musicological Society (member of the Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines (CIPSH - UNESCO). 650 speakers from all over the world. 20 working sessions per day. Events, concerts and a book fair.In an age that calls itself  “multicultural” and with the rise or renewal of ethnic and religious conflicts, the problems of identity construction have gained the centre of world attention. Moreover, “identity” operates at multiple levels of the human experience, not only ethnic and religious, but political, sexual, generational, and so on. Furthermore, and throughout most of its history, musicology has relied on the assumption – itself a more or less consciously “identity related” one – that its object of study was the Western art music tradition, to which other traditions were to be compared. It is only in relatively recent years that musicology has systematically addressed questions of identity, recognizing that music is one of the means through which different identities are shaped and enter into relational networks. This trend has undoubtedly opened up new perspectives in musicological research, while posing new problems. First, there is the redefinition of the identity of so-called “art music”: although it can no longer be taken as the central or main tradition, “art music” nevertheless still needs to be studied and evaluated as one of many identity associated traditions. Another open question is whether the recognition of cultural multiplicity must necessarily lead to accepting the existence of many identities, separate and poorly communicating with each other, or might rather lead to a broader perspective that, without privileging one culture over others, would make it possible to recognize similarities and intersections.The congress aims to bring these issues to participants from varied specialities and of different persuasions in order to confront and discuss together the following questions: 1. How did music act, or still acts, as a tool for the construction of different forms of cultural identity? 2. Can music help build broader and more inclusive identities, promoting understanding and dialogue between cultures?