Sounds of Fascism: Media, Practices, Imagination

Universty of Bonn, September 24-26, 2025.

The word “fascism” designates a political category with a disputed historical definition, as so-called “fascist” regimes and movements from the end of the First World War to the present day can differ widely in their forms and actions. Stanley Payne describes those of interwar Europe using a wide range of criteria that specify their ideology, aesthetics, organization and enemies (Payne 1980). For Roger Griffin, who extends his study to post-World War II movements, their fundamental and common characteristic is to be palingenetic ultra-nationalist political projects (Griffin 1991). However, this proposal for a consensual, root definition has not put an end to historiographical (Costa Pinto 2011; Costa Pinto & Kallis 2014) or political debates, as shown by the latest polemics concerning Trump’s indentification with fascism (Zerofsky 2024). Considering the central role sound plays in the mediation of politics, in political practices, and as a propaganda instrument, how could its study contribute to this debate and help us define fascism?

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Innovation In Music 2025

Innovation In Music 2025
Bath Spa University, Bath UK
13-15 June 2025

Please forward to interested parties in your networks.

Principal theme: New Beginnings: From ‘Tabula Rasa’ to ‘Rip It Up And Start Again’

Across the musical spectrum, from Arvo Pärt to Orange Juice, starting from zero is a common occurrence in the world of music.

Whether we’re starting with a blank slate, writing the rules over again, making it up as we go along, or coming up with a grand plan, the history of music is also a history of innovation. How often do we get the chance to build something exactly the way we want it, to make all those fine-grained adjustments that will make a project just right? The perfectly structured track, the perfectly balanced mix, the perfectly designed and executed performance. The new piece of technology that does exactly what we designed it to do.

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Revisiting resistance in mainstream music

Call for Paper for the 56^th Conference of the French Association of American Studies

General theme of the conference: “Resistance”

Title of the popular music panel: “Revisiting resistance in mainstream music”

The conference will be held at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, on May 20-23 2025.

From the 1970s onwards, under the impetus of the subcultural studies developed by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, many forms of popular music (rock, punk, rap, reggae, afrobeat, etc.) were seen as symbolic expressions of resistance to authority in all its forms, from political power to the capitalist system, via the military, school, the family, patriarchy, and so on. For George Melly, Dick Hebdige, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and many others, by hijacking the products of the culture industry, music lovers were enacting “rituals of resistance” through which they affirmed their individuality and autonomy.

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Digital Futures for Chinese Music

28th CHIME International Conference, 4–8 July 2025
CHIME: Worldwide Platform for Chinese Music (https://www.chimemusic.net)
University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

In this conference we focus on the various ways new media (digital media especially) provide spaces for preserving, creating, playing, sharing, teaching, or discussing music, and the ways these spaces are impacting what musicians, culture bearers, and others do in the musical part of their lives. Prospective participants are encouraged to submit proposals that resonate with this theme. However, presentations of any new research in the broad area of Chinese music studies are also welcome, whether these engage with the theme or not.

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Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song

June 5–7, 2025, McGill University, Montreal QC, Canada

Timbre and orchestration are essential aspects of musical experience in any culture or style. They enable us to effortlessly identify different genres of music and are particularly important in popular musics. This centrality is reflected in Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song (TOPS), a three-day conference hosted by McGill University’s Schulich School of Music and the ACTOR (Analysis, Creation and Teaching of Orchestration) Partnership. The conference convenes scholars, producers, performers, and audiences of popular music for keynote lectures, workshops, posters, and papers, united under the theme of how timbre and orchestration give rise to critical and analytical accounts of genre, identity, performance, production, and perception.

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Song, Stage and Screen 2025

Meet Us in the Middle
June 25-28, 2025
Hosted by the College of Communication at DePaul University

Song, Stage and Screen 2025 will convene in Chicago, Illinois, at DePaul University’s College of Communication from June 25-28, 2025. Sometimes referred to as the “Second City” or “Heart of America,” Chicago is a vital (and often unsung) incubator for musical theater, dance, and opera productions.

The location of this year’s conference invites us to contemplate the notion of “the middle,” and to suggest ways that “middles” inform the creation, circulation, consumption and study of musical theater. In recent years, scholars in musical theater studies and adjacent fields have demonstrated that “middlegrounds” can be a robust site for analysis. Stacy Wolf and Jake Johnson have directed our attention to the existence and importance of musical theater in the “middle” of the United States, while Derek Miller has encouraged study of “average” commercial productions and theater careers that are neither especially glorious nor terrible, but that ultimately drive the industry. Colleen Rua has addressed how musicals like West Side Story and In the Heights portray quotidian aspects of Latinx life, while Koritha Mitchell has argued that low or fair-to-middling standards enable and elevate white mediocrity.

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Music and Mediation

Conference at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide
9-10 June 2025

Keynote speaker: Naomi Sunderland, Director, Creative Arts Research Institute, Griffith University
Deadline for abstracts: Monday 16 December 2024

Mediation, in all its senses, from transmission to conflict resolution, is particularly relevant in times of technological innovation, sustainability challenges, forced displacement and struggles for equality or survival. This conference, generously supported by the Musicological Society of Australia (MSA), is concerned with the ways music and the study of music may contribute to the many theories and practices around mediation.

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Creativity, Subjectivity, Relocation

15-16 April 2025 | University of Aberdeen

Context
This event engages with the dynamics of ‘culture’ and the (re)formation of identities through the creative practices of artists moving between places or are born in multicultural households. Driven by Amin Hashemi’s current Leverhulme Early Career fellowship, Integration and the Making of Subjectivity via Musical Creativity that explores such dynamics among musicians with an Iranian background working and living inside the UK, this symposium invites scholars from across the UK who had worked on migration, integration, cultural exchange and musical creativity to present ideas, engage in debates and open discussions. Creativity, Subjectivity, Relocation addresses some contentious questions of socio-cultural homogeneity, assimilation and isolation in Britain that often subliminally or implicitly communicate a predetermined sense of incompatibility of cultural backgrounds or the impossibility of assimilation between the East and the West. This event takes music making amongst migrants as a dynamic, rather than static, practice. The discussions could address any other aspects of migration – including but not limited to integration, identity, or cultural communication – while focusing on the confluence of the processes of creativity and subjectivity with equal attention to the social and the individual.

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Journal of Music Production Research (Inaugural Edition)

The Journal of Music Production Research (JMPR) is delighted to announce its call for papers for the inaugural edition. JMPR is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to defining, exploring, analysing, and advancing scholarly discourse and practice in the multifaceted field of music production. With a primary focus on the artistic, technical, and innovative practices that shape the discipline, JMPR serves as a leading forum for rigorous research and critical inquiry at the intersection of technology, creativity, and industry practice.

We welcome submissions from scholars, practitioners, and industry professionals who contribute to the growing body of knowledge in music production. Research from all relevant methodologies and disciplines is encouraged, particularly on interdisciplinary approaches bridging the gap between music production’s scientific and artistic aspects.

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Joint SMI and ICTM-IE Postgraduate Conference 2025

Trinity College Dublin
16–17 January 2025
Deadline: Friday 8 November 2024
Email: [email protected]

The Society for Musicology in Ireland (SMI) and the Irish National Committee of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD-IE) are pleased to announce their annual joint postgraduate conference will take place at Trinity College Dublin on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 January 2025.

Postgraduate students working in all areas of musical research are warmly invited to submit proposals for 20-minute papers or 30-minute lecture recitals of research conducted under supervision at a third-level institution. Poster presentations are also welcome. Areas of research include but are not limited to, historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory and analysis, composition, music technology, music pedagogy, popular music studies, performance studies, musical practice as research, psychology of music, and music and gender. Attendees should convey research findings and professional conclusions honestly and in alignment with established research integrity principles, including those relating specifically to the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI).

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