A platform to share information about choral repertoire was on Tenso’s wishlist from the very start. In 2012, a pilot version of the wiki was developed, which gave the Tenso team a lot of input, and made it possible to refine our list of requirements. Since then, the team has been looking for partners who can develop this database according to the plan, and worked with wiki-developers based in Paris, Rīga and the Netherlands.
We contacted colleague organizations that have developed music
databases to see whether any of these could be used as a template for Tenso.
But:
- most of them run as a database without any options for editing / contributing for outsiders; only administrators can access the data.
- most of them – therefore – have (one or more) staff members that administrate the database full time.
- existing databases do not allow for vocal music (they do not have “place” for texts, translations, pronunciation, etc other than in a description field).
- existing databases mostly only contain information about the work, not the scores or recordings themselves.
In 2016, we started a collaboration with Wikibase Solutions in the Netherlands, which will develop a wiki based on a full-fledged database; this will give us all the options of a database, while still maintaining the user-friendly environment of a wiki.