MusicSphere Kick-Off Meeting: Launching a New Journey in Digital Musical Heritage
MusicSphere has officially begun its journey. The project was launched during an inspiring and highly collaborative Kick-Off Meeting held in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 16–17 October 2025. Partners gathered in person at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH-ITI), coordinated by the interdisciplinary team of the Brain, Health & Virtual Reality (BHV) Research Group, setting an enthusiastic and ambitious tone for a project dedicated to safeguarding the dynamic heritage of traditional musical instruments.
Funded under the Horizon Europe call HORIZON-CL2-2024-HERITAGE-ECCCH-01-01, MusicSphere brings together organisations from Greece, Spain, Germany, Cyprus, and Belgium. The consortium unites expertise in acoustics, musical cultural heritage, extended reality, digital technologies, scientific research, and conservation, ensuring a strong interdisciplinary foundation.
The meeting began with a shared commitment to MusicSphere’s mission: developing advanced technologies for the digital preservation, analysis, and immersive experience of traditional musical instruments, with a particular focus on pipe organs and the hydraulis. Throughout the sessions, the team reviewed the project’s work plan, examined the two initial use cases, and discussed the challenges involved in developing nine innovative toolkits.
The Project Officer of MusicSphere provided guidance for the successful implementation of the project, ensuring alignment with Horizon Europe requirements and supporting the consortium in achieving its objectives. In addition, representatives from the ECHOES mother project introduced the Cultural Heritage Cloud (ECCCH) ecosystem, explaining its structure and functionalities, and welcomed MusicSphere into this growing community of initiative
Connected to the Cultural Heritage Cloud
MusicSphere is part of the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), a shared platform that provides heritage professionals and researchers with access to data, scientific resources, training, and state-of-the-art digital tools. The ECCCH ecosystem is being developed by ECHOES, the mother project responsible for building this interconnected digital space.
Structure and Next Steps
Running for 42 months, MusicSphere is organised into 13 Work Packages covering technology research and development, integration with the ECCCH infrastructure, pilot demonstrations, an open call for third-party funding, as well as training, communication, and exploitation activities.
The consortium outlined the roadmap for the upcoming technical milestones and aligned strategies for communication, dissemination, and societal impact. Establishing MusicSphere’s visual identity and online presence has already been prioritised as an essential step towards engaging future users and audiences. After a deeper analysis of the project, the consortium planned the next steps for its progress as well as the main guidelines for communication and dissemination.
“Our common target is the successful development of the project, with the maximum societal and scientific impact.
In this direction, MusicSphere will collaborate with the ECCCH ecosystem for early adoption of best practices, early knowledge transfer, and ensure the compliance of the results with the ECCCH infrastructure and framework.