Royal Musical Association 58th Annual Conference

Durham University, 8th–10th September 2022
Call for Proposals

Deadline: midnight, Saturday 1st January 2022 

The 58th Annual Conference of the Royal Musical Association will be hosted by Durham University’s Department of Music between Thursday 8th and Saturday 10th September 2022. The conference aims to promote musical research and practice across all repertories, contexts, methodologies and approaches. We welcome proposals reflecting insights from disciplines beyond musicology, which consider music’s place in society, or which offer interdisciplinary perspectives. The Dent Medal Lecture will be given by the recipient for 2021, Professor Laura Tunbridge (Oxford University). The Peter le Huray Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor George E. Lewis (Columbia University). Despite the ongoing pandemic, we anticipate that the conference will take place in-person. We are however planning for alternative formats, either wholly or partly online, in response to changing UK Government and institutional guidelines.

Submission Details
The conference aims to represent the entire range of current musical scholarship and consequently welcomes proposals from scholars and practitioners at all career stages. Presentations are invited in the following formats: • individual papers (20 minutes); • themed sessions and practice-based research workshops of 3–4 papers (90 minutes); • lecture-recitals (30 minutes); • acoustic and electro-acoustic compositions (not exceeding 8 minutes); • poster presentations.

Proposals should be submitted through the online submission portal no later than midnight (GMT) on Monday 20th December 2021. Submissions should include the following: • Individual papers: an abstract of up to 250 words, including an indication of equipment required. • Lecture-recitals, etc.: an abstract of up to 250 words, including an indication of equipment required, plus a short video excerpt. • Themed sessions and practice-based research workshops of 3–4 papers: an abstract of up to 250 words for each of the contributions to the session. In addition, a rationale of up to 250 words, which makes clear the session’s purpose, theme and the ways in which the individual contributions relate, both thematically and in terms of organisation and timing (for example, four 15-minute position papers followed by a half-hour discussion). Please include full contact details of the convenor and indicate whether an independent chair will be required and what equipment is needed. • Compositions: submissions with a maximum duration of 8 minutes are invited. Works can be scored for a) piano, b) violin and piano, c) cello and piano, d) piano trio, e) any of these combinations plus live electronics, f) pure electroacoustics. Electronic parts should be stereo only. If live rather than fixed recordings, composers will be responsible for providing any practice materials required by instrumentalists, such as an example render or practice software, and liaising on the running of live electronics for performance. Note that given the logistics of the schedule, complex live electronic setups may not be possible. • Posters: a statement indicating the title of the project and who will be representing it at the conference, together with one or two sentences about the project, collaborators, partners and backers, as appropriate. You can submit via the online portal at https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/music/about-us/events/rma-durham-conference-2022/. If you have any problems submitting, then please contact Professor Julian Horton at julian.horton@durham.ac.uk.

Assessment of Proposals
All proposals will be anonymised prior to assessment. The committee hopes to notify authors of its decision by 31st January 2022. Those selected will be asked to confirm their acceptance and may make revisions to their abstract and (where applicable) timings. The full programme will be announced and booking will open in April 2022. Abstracts will be published on the conference website in July. Durham’s Music Department and the RMA are firmly committed to the values of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Respective EDI statements can be found on our websites.

Programme Committee
Michelle Assay (RMA); Ellen Falconer (RMA); Katherine Hambridge (Durham University); Julian Horton (Durham University); Erin Johnson-Williams (Durham University); Lonán Ó’Briain (Nottingham University); Hector Sequera-Mora (Durham University); James Weeks (Durham University); Bennett Zon (Durham University).