PAST EVENTS
& CALLS FOR
PAPERS
The “Harpe de melodie” from a fourteenth-century collection of music theory treatises (Newberry Library, VAULT Case MS 54.1)
EMAIG Biennial Conference
June 18-20, 2020
Newberry Library
60 W. Walton Street
Chicago, IL
Held virtually due to COVID-19 on June 19, 23, 26, and 30, 2020
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Music, Theory, and Their Sources
Click here for the Conference Program and Videos.
Click here for the Call for Papers.
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The Early Music Analysis Interest Group of the Society for Music Theory is proud to announce their third biennial conference, co-sponsored with the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies.
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The study and performance of early music requires us to recreate and represent past musical practices. In this work, we must consult a variety of historical and modern sources available to us today, ranging from manuscripts and prints to editions, translations, audio recordings, and digital sources. In addition, it is often essential to consider other kinds of ‘sources’ in a broader sense, such as biographical studies, transmission histories, or the invocation of historical authorities like Boethius or Isidore. This conference, “Music, Theory, and Their Sources,” will explore the ways in which we engage with these sources of and for early music and the degrees of mediation intrinsic to them. We invite proposals from scholars of diverse research areas including—but not limited to—music theory and analysis, musicology, performance practice, the history of music theory, codicology, art history, and digital humanities that take into consideration the sources for early music and music theory. In addition to paper presentations, the conference will include a collection presentation featuring several of the remarkable items contained in the Newberry’s holdings and a concert by the Newberry Consort.
Proposed Special Session, AMS/SMT 2018
November 1-4, 2018
AMS/SMT Joint Annual Conference
San Antonio, TX
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Absolute Music Before 1700:
Textless Repertoires and Practices
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Hidden between the masses, motets, chansons, and madrigals most frequently encountered in performances and analyses of early music is a wealth of repertoires not predicated upon the transmission of a text. These dances, ricercars, canons, musical enigmas, and examples from treatises and didactic manuals, to name a few, offer the analyst the opportunity to focus on the notes, set aside the extramusical complications of text-music relationships, and consider the nature of absolute music in early music traditions. In order to foster dialogue on methodological approaches to these repertoires, the SMT Early Music Analysis Interest Group will propose a special session for the 2018 joint meeting of SMT and AMS.
The interest group invites proposals examining works from a textless tradition before 1700 for presentations in the form of twenty-minute papers or alternative format presentations (e.g., presentations with a performance aspect, workshops) of thirty minutes. Submissions should include a proposal of 350 words or less explaining the subject, approach, thesis, and findings, and may include up to four pages of additional materials (musical examples, bibliography, etc.). Proposals should be submitted as an anonymous PDF attachment, and the accompanying email should include the presenter’s name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), format (20-minute paper, workshop, etc.), equipment needs, and interest in potentially using live performers.
Questions and submissions should be directed to Benjamin Dobbs
(Benjamin.Dobbs@furman.edu). The deadline for submissions is 12/15/17 at 11:59
pm (EST).
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EMAIG Biennial Conference
June 2-3, 2018
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA
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Tonal Structures in Early Music at Twenty
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Click here for the Conference Program and Abstracts.
Click here for available PDFs of handouts.
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The multifaceted relationships between early repertoires, the tonal structures that govern them, and the theories that seek to describe them remain one of the most intriguing and enigmatic areas of inquiry in our discipline. The publication in 1998 of Tonal Structures in Early Music, edited by Cristle Collins Judd, marked a critical intervention into this field. The volume has encouraged scholars of early music to consider “tonal structures” in a plural, flexible way, and has nuanced our understanding of modality, tonality, and the many stylistic and theoretical discourses that these terms aim to describe. We are excited to announce a conference that celebrates the contributions of this volume and reappraises the state of the field in light of developments in the last twenty years.
The SMT Early Music Analysis Interest Group invites proposals on any topic exploring tonal structures and early music, broadly construed. We will consider proposals for traditional twenty minute papers, alternative format presentations (workshops, lecture-recitals, etc.), and special sessions of any format. As is our tradition, we will take advantage of the robust community of professional performers in our interest group and in the greater Boston area to provide live performances of musical examples where possible.
Submissions should include an anonymous proposal of 500 words or less and up to four pages of additional materials (musical examples, bibliography, etc.). Proposals for special sessions should indicate, in the proposal document, the nature of the session, the format, any special needs, and desired amount of time. Proposals should be submitted as an anonymous PDF attachment, and the accompanying email should include the presenter’s name, institution, format, equipment needs, and interest in potentially using live performers.
Questions and submissions should be directed to Megan Long (megan.long@oberlin.edu). The deadline for submissions is 2/16/18 at 11:59 pm (PST).
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EMAIG Biennial Conference
May 21-22, 2016
Indiana University Bloomington
Bloomington, IN
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