Abstract
The chapter explores how, in ensemble music workshops devoted to Conduction® – a conducting practice based on a codified lexicon of gestural instructions – conductor and attending musicians not sharing linguistic repertoires manage communication by resorting to occasional, non-professional language mediation. Against the background of the alternation between ‘making music’ and ‘talking about music’ typical of these instructional events, it is thus explored how language mediation is jointly accomplished through a fine-grained temporal and multimodal coordination of conductor and musicians volunteering as occasional interpreters, as well as how it can be negotiated among further ensemble members, resulting in a practice that is specifically adapted to, but also contributes to the shape of, the very musical context it is embedded in.