IV International Conference on Sonorities Research (CIPS)

Silences

Dates: June 4-7, 2025
Location: Federal University of Espírito Santo – Vitória/ES – Brazil

Online stage: May 31, 2025
The story of composer John Cage is well-known, as he underwent an experience of deep silence in an anechoic chamber and found that he could still hear the internal sounds of his own body. This story confronts us with the inevitability of a complex phenomenon, of a multiple and inexhaustible nature: silence.

Silence, which would seem, at first, to be a counterpoint to sound, a kind of negative, reveals itself as an overflow of the audible boundaries. Western music makes explicit the inescapable importance of silences, from the staff to sound synthesis. In the score, the pause is a marked and significant element, a fundamental part of the composition itself. In digital audio workstations, silence is a block of time without a pulse that is added to the compositional timeline. The absence of sound, it can be concluded, is not a nullity of meaning, but rather the partial result of a broader communicational machination of power games to be mapped from interdisciplinary perspectives.

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New Metal Worlds: Building Bridges and Mending Broken Backs

The International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS) and Metal Music Studies-Spain, in collaboration with the University of Seville, the Complutense University of Madrid, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Granada, the University of Córdoba, the University of Jaén, the University of Oviedo, and the University of La Laguna, invites applications in response to the Call for Proposals 2025 for ISMMS’ 7th Biennial International Research Conference. The event will be held in Seville, Spain, 3-6 June, 2025 (and virtually) under the theme:  NEW METAL WORLDS / BUILDING BRIDGES AND MENDING BROKEN BACKS

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Negotiating the Revolt: Punk in Times of Political Transformation

The conference is organized by the Institute of Czech History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University alongside the project Negotiating the Revolt in Czech and Slovak Postsocialist Transition, which is supported by the Czech Science Foundation and carried out in collaboration with the Archive of Czech and Slovak Subcultures, the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture and the Punk Scholars Network Slovak and Czech.

Date: May 16 – 18, 2025

Venue: Eternia, Nádražní 3, Prague 5, Czech Republic: https://www.eterniasmichov.com/

Conference organizers: Karolina Válová, Miroslav Michela, Ondřej Daniel, Marta Harasimowicz

Email contact: [email protected]

The fall of communist rule in Central Europe has often been interpreted as a long-awaited renaissance of civil society, a national emancipation or “rebirth of Eastern Europe” characterised by a state of euphoria, at least during and immediately after the political upheavals. Artists and intellectuals who had participated in the broadly contextualised cultural opposition often believed that democracy would bring the creative freedom they had been longing for. Transformations in politics and the economy affected the institutional background of the music and entertainment industry and brought new challenges to social hierarchies by redefining categories such as “alternative”, “underground”, “official” and “unofficial”. With the opening of post-socialist countries to global cultural trends and markets, the youth began to be seen as a key marketing demographic and a target for both material and nonmaterial cultural production.

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Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives Conference

Eighth Biennial Conference

Deadline: December 18, 2024
Conference dates: 5–8 August 2025
Location: Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, United Kingdom
Website: https://congregationalmusic.org/call-papers-2025

Congregational music-making is a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. It reflects, informs, and articulates convictions and concerns that are irreducibly local even as they flow along global networks. The Christian Congregational Music Conference aims to expand the avenues of scholarly inquiry into congregational music-making by bringing together world-class scholars and practitioners to explore the varying cultural, social, and spiritual roles music plays in the life of various Christian communities around the world. The conference will feature guest speakers, roundtables, and workshops that reflect the ever-broadening scope of research and practice in Christian congregational music-making around the world.

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Music Ecosystems: Challenges and Opportunities

Editors
Guy Morrow (University of Melbourne)
Carsten Winter (Hanover University of Music, Drama Media)

Following the (15th) International Music Business Research Days conference (Music Ecosystems Research: Challenges and Opportunities) produced by the International Music Business Research Association and held from June 5-7, 2024 at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, we invite you to further elucidate the formation and special features of “music ecosystems” by submitting a chapter proposal for this contributed volume.

We are looking for contributions that will help to better understand and explain music contexts as “ecosystems”. The term “ecosystem”, which has now become a key strategic and political term, was introduced into strategicdiscussions to emphasize the fact that the environment of more and more organizations was becoming more dynamic, complex, interdependent and borderless; that such organizations were beginning to resemble “ecosystems”, i.e. biological systems in nature (see for e.g. in particular Davidson, Harmer & Marshall 2014 and, for the origin and logic of ecological thinking, the literature review by de Bernard, Comunian & Gross 2021). We only understand these newly (more dynamic, complex, interdependent and borderless) social relationships/environments if we take these characteristics and normative implications that go with them into account. Some even think that we cannot/should not do this with classic economic concepts (e.g. Scharmer & Kaufer 2013), which focus mostly on the economic efficiency of relationships, markets, contracts, advertising, etc. or for example with classic concepts concerning culture for similar reasons.

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Journal of Festive Studies

Issue 8

In addition to our guest-edited section described below, we always welcome submissions on a rolling basis, with no deadline for consideration. Please do think of us if your research or professional background touches on festive practices!

International borders affect you every day. They play a role in determining whether you are a birthright citizen or an unauthorized migrant. They showcase a nation’s ability or inability to guarantee your wellbeing. They factor into immigration, asylum, and national security debates. Media and political analysts often portray borders as places where pathos, illegality, and poverty thrive innately. Yet, they are also places where ordinary citizens make historical claims, or defend, criticize, and even parody immigration and security policy.

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K-popology: Music, Video, Choreo, Fandom

Uppsala, Sweden, June 8–11, 2025

K-popology: Music, Video, Choreo, Fandom is an international conference at Uppsala University (Sweden), June 8–11, 2025, covering artistic, cultural and industrial aspects of K-pop as a multifaceted global trend. Since the turn of the millennium, K-Pop has ventured into largely uncharted territories, giving rise to transmedial and transcultural phenomena that present unique challenges and opportunities for scholars, as well as for performers, composers, choreographers, promoters, and fans. The rapid evolution of K-Pop often outpaces scholarly efforts to fully comprehend its complexities. We encourage academics as well as artists, composers, choreographers and producers to propose presentations that deepen our knowledge of K-pop as both an aesthetic and a socio-economic phenomenon. The conference takes place after the K-pop Nordic Festival, June 7, 2025, in Stockholm which is ca. 40 minutes from Uppsala by train.

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Everyday Music Scenes: Pubs, Clubs and ‘Stutes

RMA Study Day – Call for Papers
International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle University, 14th-15th April 2025

Back in 1957, Richard Hoggart highlighted ‘sing-songs and concerts in the pubs and clubs’ as the most indicative of working-class music tastes. Yet the everyday music scenes of familiar songs and/or communal singalongs, particularly around working men’s clubs, have been conspicuously absent from the worlds of musicology, ethnomusicology and popular music studies. This study day, supported by the RMA (Royal Musical Association), intends to stimulate challenging conversations about this research gap and explore rich avenues for the study of music in pubs, clubs and similar spaces of everyday, communal music experiences.

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Taylor Swift Companion

In 2023 Taylor Swift was recognised as the biggest selling recording artist globally; her recent Eras tour was the first to gross more than $1 billion. Beyond her music and live performances, she is known for her social media content (which has revealed her political viewpoints and, opinions on the business of music), merchandise and, other creative endeavours including filmmaking.

Academic interest and engagement with the work of Taylor Swift is not new, and naturally moves beyond musicology. Although those explorations are worth noting especially in relation to post-genre pop music aesthetics, which challenges universality and legitimacy in music, identity and experience (James 2017).  Whilst often recognised by academics as having a role in teenage identity construction especially (for example, Frith 1996 and, Tarrant et al 2002), popular music in the case of Swift demands further and more nuanced attention. For example, Chittenden (2013) notes the role Swift’s lyrics play in identity politics particularly in relation to romance: whilst seemingly reinforcing social norms and stereotypes, these lyrics also highlight the complexity of relationships particularly in the contemporary cultural context; and, these discussions about them on online fan forums help supports emotional wellbeing. This work arguably having some relationship with Jackson’s (2021) research on popular celebrity feminism and, the way teenage girls make sense of feminist subjectivities. Fan-led music events such as those discussed by Fuller (2018) makes it clear that the participatory cultures and practices of ‘Swifties’ are both personalised and collective, with affective resonance.

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Music, Research, and Activism II: Solidarities and Urgencies

14–16 May 2025, University of Helsinki

How do music scholars engage with activist research? How are Black feminist and Indigenous perspectives applied in music research? How can music and music research advance equality, equity, human rights, or ecological sustainability? What could music researchers and practitioners do in our contemporary world characterized by climate emergency, ecocide, racism, gender and sexual discrimination, war, conflict, and humanitarian crises? How are solidarities being built and reimagined, and how is urgency present in music and among activists and researchers working with music?

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