Conference Agenda

The network ‘France: Musiques, Cultures, 1789-1918’ meets every eight months to discuss research on music in France, French music and musicians acrosse the globe, and related issues. The event in Minneapolis focuses on questions of music and the distant, agencies of gender, Ravel, singers and their legacies, regionalism, and Berlioz.  The conference runs from Wednesday 5 November 2025 to midday on Thursday 6 November 2025.

In recent years, musicians, activists, and scholars have investigated how different musical traditions interact with questions of identity and belonging. Since at least the nineteenth century, Western concert music has been used by divergent political and social causes as a rallying point, as model, and as a potent communicator of personal and group identities. Brahms’s music, for example, has represented the political ideals of Vienna’s Liberal bourgeois community (Notley, Brodbeck) and the upward social mobility of Black musicians in the United States after the Civil War (Thurman), while also being upheld as apolitical when treated as “absolute music” in the aftermath of World War II (Beller-McKenna). This preconference seeks to explore these and other ways that Brahms, his music, and the music of his circle have come to communicate personal and group identities since the late nineteenth century and the ways that different groups have addressed questions of belonging among those who engage with Brahms and his music as scholars, performers, and listeners. 

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites friends, faculty, students, alumni, and prospective students to our AMS/SMT reception.

This session will be held as a paper forum. Paper forums, a session type introduced in 2024, consist of three paper presentations on closely-related topics and are designed to foster closer intellectual connections among presenters. To help do this, the session will have a discussant who will provide learned commentary and feedback after the three papers. The chair will then hold a single, collective Q&A at the end of the session.

\nThis session will be held as a paper forum. Paper forums, a session type introduced in 2024, consist of three paper presentations on closely-related topics and are designed to foster closer intellectual connections among presenters. To help do this, the session will have a discussant who will provide learned commentary and feedback after the three papers. The chair will then hold a single, collective Q&A at the end of the session.\n

SMT Divest!!\nOver the past year, some members of the SSRIG have been in conversation with the SMT Executive Board about the SMT divesting from its financial stake in caging people, manufacturing weapons, and ecological calamity. \nIn May the Executive Board gave us their answer: no. \nFor our meeting at this conference, we are going more public and asking all interested SMT members to join our call to divest.\n\nOur agenda will be as follows:\n\n\nPresentation on SMT’s investments and our campaign so far\n\n\nDiscussion of the language for our call to divest\n\n\nDiscussion of future campaign actions\n\n\n\nIf you aren’t able to make our meeting but are interested in getting involved in our campaign, please reach out to Steve Lett at s.e.lett@gmail.com.

The SMT’s Dance and Movement Interest Group (DMIG) and Performance and Analysis Interest Group (PAIG) are hosting a joint session featuring lightning talks, roundtable discussion, and open time for socializing among interest group members.\n\nFollowing a brief business meeting, the program will consist of the following lightning talks: \n\n\nNate Mitchell, “Dancing with Death: Choreomusical Cueing in Dark Souls Boss Fights”\nAsh Mach, “Effort and Tension in Rebecca Saunders\'s Dialogue for Viola and Percussion (2011)”\nAmy Ming Wai Tai, “Physical and Psychological Spaces in Dance and Music”\n\n\nA brief Q&A period will immediately follow each talk. After the third talk, space will be opened for general/roundtable Q&A and discussion. The final 30 minutes of the session will be dedicated to informal socializing among interest group members. We hope you will join us!

The conference is free to attend and no registration is required.This conference is sponsored by the American Beethoven Society, the University of Alabama, UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, and a generous private donation.

Presented by twelve performers and qualified experts, this lecture-recital takes a programmatic focus on \"African Pianism\" (see Omojola 2001, Kimberlin and Euba 2005, Nyaho 2008), expanding awareness of a distinctive movement within contemporary composition and applying novel methods to this repertoire including recent works not previously addressed by music research. The program will include performances, visualizations, and commentary of eight works followed by panel discussion.\nCombining elements of lecture-recitals and workshops, this program strives to broaden participation and interest in the growing tradition of African Pianism. The audience will be encouraged and equipped to bring this repertory into educational contexts, as piano works appropriate for student performance, deep listening, and score study. The scores for these works are widely available to faculty students, either through their libraries or the composers’ websites, except for two newly composed works being prepared for the conference that will be shared with attendees and available to the public afterwards.\nFeatured composers include Halim El-Dabh, a Coptic from Egypt; Nyokabi Kariũki, a Gikuyu from Kenya; Gyimah Labi, an Akan from Ghana; Ayo Oluranti, a Yoruba from Nigeria; Christian Onyeji, an Igbo from Nigeria; Shawn E. Okpebholo, an Edo from Nigeria; and Joshua Uzoigwe, an Igbo from Nigeria. Together, these composers represent five countries and seven ethnicities, and their birth dates span 75 years. The works on this program are largely through-composed, which reflects the composers\' multiple musical consciousnesses, including post-modernist compositional study and upbringing with regular exposure to and participation in African indigenous music.\nHalim El-Dabh, as a Coptic Egyptian, stands out from the rest of the composers, who are Niger-Congo peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. However, Halim El-Dabh, unlike many other North Africans, traveled extensively on the continent, embraced a pan-African identity, and was known for leading improvisatory music-making with drums associated with West Africa. Thus, El-Dabh has often been included in what is primarily a sub-Saharan African school of composition, which was intentional on his part (p.c. 2011). A brief video excerpt, never before shown, of El-Dabh improvising at the piano in his 90s in Kent, Ohio, one of his last public performances, will be shared as part of this celebration of African Pianism.\nThe performances will be presented and discussed by Andrew Aziz, Christopher Brody, Aaron Carter-Ényì, Andrew Pau, Gilad Rabinovitch, Anton Vishio, Robert Wells, Quintina Carter-Ényi, Hang Ki Choi, Charles Lwanga, Ayọ̀ Olúrántí, and Christian Onyeji.\n

This session will be held as a paper forum. Paper forums, a session type introduced in 2024, consist of three paper presentations on closely-related topics and are designed to foster closer intellectual connections among presenters. To help do this, the session will have a discussant who will provide learned commentary and feedback after the three papers. The chair will then hold a single, collective Q&A at the end of the session.

Since 2016, we at AMS After Dark have hosted an annual comedy panel to accompany the fascinating scholarship we encounter at AMS/SMT/SEM conferences. Panelists will each deliver a 5–7-minute parodic presentation, after which the audience will hopefully woo them with the most delightful Q&A they have ever experienced. Awards will be given for categories like most esoteric, most likely to be a real conference paper in 50 years, and most self-indulgent question. The theme for this year’s 10th annual(!) panel is “Toward a Truly Historically Informed Music Theory,” with a focus on numerology. As always, however, we will welcome papers that satirize ANY aspect of music scholarship, so long as they do not cross the line into personal offenses. Full Call for Papers (to circulate in September): amsafterdark.neocities.org (or https://bit.ly/amsad2025cfp if you prefer to read the Chicago Manual of Style for funsies) Program (to be posted in early November): https://bit.ly/amsad2025program Follow us on Twitter @AMSafterdark

\nPlease join us for the Welcome Reception! The Welcome Reception will feature a cash bar and light refreshments. Open to all. \n\n\n

Attending the AMS/SMT Joint Annual Meeting for the first time? Meet new colleagues and be welcomed by members of the AMS and SMT governing Board and committees! The \"Joint New Attendee Reception\" is a great opportunity to make new friends and get your bearings at your first annual meeting.

Meeting of the AMS Board of Directors. Closed meeting.

Reception for present, past, and future affiliates of Northwestern University and friends.

By invitation only.

An open meeting for anyone following a 12-step recovery program who wants to connect with and provide support to likeminded attendees of the Joint Annual Meeting.

\n\nHumdrum Corpora: Encoding History and Philosophy\nDavid Huron began his career by encoding several corpora that have continued to be discussed in the decades since, including the Barlow and Morgenstern Dictionary of Musical Themes, the JS Bach Chorale Repertory, and the reformatting of Helmut Schaffrath’s Essen Folk Song Collection. He also promoted his idea of building a \"long menu\" — a compilation of potential research questions generated when you “make time to think.” Our session will be divided into three parts: (1) a short overview of David’s contributions to—and philosophy toward—digital music corpus building (10 minutes), (2) an interactive workshop dedicated to navigating these corpora (60 minutes), and (3) rapid-fire “long menu” presentations (20 minutes). Daniel Shanahan (Northwestern University) will provide the overview of David Huron\'s encoding practices. Long-menu presenters include Drake Eshleman (Indiana University), Jeremy Day-O\'Connell (Skidmore College), and Claire Arthur (Georgia Tech University).\n\n\n

By invitation only.

The AMS Buddy Program Meet-up is scheduled for Thursday, 6 November from 1:00-2:00pm. This program, hosted by members of the AMS Committee on Career-Related Issues, is designed to extend a warm and hearty welcome to new AMS members or those attending a national meeting for the first time by pairing them with experienced members of the Society. The deadline to sign up for the AMS Buddy Program is September 30, 2025. You can sign up here.

Come socialize with graduates, faculty members, and current students affiliated with the University of Minnesota, Carleton College, and St. Olaf College. Students interested in learning more about graduate programs in musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory at the University of Minnesota are also welcome.

Closed meeting.

Orientation for recipients of AMS Career Development Grants in American Music.

Meet and Greet for students who have received funding from the AMS to attend the Annual Meeting as part of the AMS Explore and Supplemental Funding programs. By invitation only.

\nOrientation for AMS Explore participants. Closed meeting.\n\n\n

By invitation only.

SSCM Board of Directors meeting. Closed meeting.

This session will be held as a paper forum. Paper forums, a session type introduced in 2024, consist of three paper presentations on closely-related topics and are designed to foster closer intellectual connections among presenters. To help do this, the session will have a discussant who will provide learned commentary and feedback after the three papers. The chair will then hold a single, collective Q&A at the end of the session.

The Joint Interest Groups and Affiliates Fair will features SMT Interest Groups, AMS Chapters, and AMS Study Groups. The fair is an opportunity to meet with representatives of these groups and learn more about their activities and ways to get involved.\n\n\nATTENTION - Interest Group and Affiliate leaders: You must reserve a table and designate at least one representative to be represented at the fair. Click here to reserve a table for your group or affiliate to participate in the Affiliates Fair.