Conference Agenda

The Online Program of events for the SEM 2025 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early October.

Use the search bar to search by name or title of paper/session. Note that this search bar does not search by keyword.

Click on the session name for a detailed view (with participant names and abstracts).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 26th Aug 2025, 07:07:54pm EDT

 
 
Session Overview
Location: M-303
Marquis Level 80
Date: Thursday, 23/Oct/2025
8:00am
-
10:00am
01I: Music, Climate Change and Extractivism around the Arctic and Antarctic
Location: M-303
 

Music, Climate Change and Extractivism around the Arctic and Antarctic

Chair(s): Lonán Ó Briain (University of Nottingham)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

Mapping Extractivism, Divining the Present: Sámi More-than-Musical Instruments in a Changing Arctic

Nicola Renzi
University of Bologna/University of Helsinki

 

"Saca el petróleo pa' mi nación": Frontier Nostalgia and the Climate Hyperobject in Songs about the Patagonian Petroleum Industry

Lydia Wagenknecht
University of Colorado Boulder

 

Relistening to the Current Environmental Crises in Chile through Mapuche Ül Metal

Jan Koplow
Duke University

10:45am
-
12:15pm
02I: Soundscapes of Worship
Location: M-303
Presenter: Sharri K. Hall, Harvard University
Presenter: Conner Singh VanderBeek, Davidson College
Presenter: Ahkeel Andres Mestayer Velasquez, UC Berkeley
 

Affect and Authenticity in Contemporary Christian Worship Soundscapes

Sharri K. Hall

Harvard University



Amplifying the Divine Word, or the Aesthetics of Reverb in Sikh Aural Architecture

Conner Singh VanderBeek

Davidson College



Space, Spirits, and Sound

Ahkeel Andres Mestayer Velasquez

UC Berkeley

12:30pm
-
1:30pm
Committee on Labor
Location: M-303
1:45pm
-
3:45pm
03I: Embodiment
Location: M-303
Presenter: Paige Carter Dailey, University of Michigan
Presenter: Inderjit N Kaur
Presenter: Edwin Porras, Haverford College
Presenter: Hamidreza Fallahi, University of Texas at Austin
 

"My Body is a Cage": Genre and Embodiment in Heavy Music

Paige Carter Dailey

University of Michigan



Secularizing Social Identity Through Performing Khayyami

Hamidreza Fallahi

University of Texas at Austin,



Transportive Sensations: Historicity, Aura, and Embodiment in Sikh Musical Worship

Inderjit N Kaur

University of Michigan, Ann arbor



Cuban Lion Dancing: Embodying Alternative Cubanness

Edwin Porras

Haverford College

4:00pm
-
5:30pm
04I: Latin American Musical Experimentalisms in Public Space
Location: M-303
Chair: Andrew Snyder
 

Latin American Musical Experimentalisms in Public Space

Chair(s): Andrew Snyder (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

The Revolution Will Be Sonified: Juan Blanco’s Utopic Soundscapes in Revolutionary Cuba

Marysol Quevedo
University of Miami

 

An Experimental Carnival: Material Engagements with Space and Sound in São Paulo, Brazil

James McNally
University of Illinois Chicago

 

Our Ship Drum Earth: Decolonial Musicking in Ernesto Neto’s Percussion Installation in Lisbon

Andrew Snyder
Universidade Nova de Lisboa

7:00pm
-
8:00pm
International Student Network Meeting
Location: M-303
Date: Friday, 24/Oct/2025
8:30am
-
10:30am
05I: Music and the Commons: The Lost Resources and Infrastructures
Location: M-303
Chair: Ioanida Costache
 

Music and the Commons: The Lost Resources and Infrastructures

Chair(s): Ana Hofman (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Ioanida Costache (Stanford University)

Discussant(s): Eric Drott (University of Texas at Austin)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

Resonances of the Commons: The Yugoslav Railway and the Infrastructures of Collective Music-Making

Ana Hofman
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

 

The Romani Commons: Extraction and Transformation

Ioanida Costache
Stanford University

 

Leisure Legibility, Bad Faith and Ecologies of Musical Expertise: Contesting the Commons

Ruard William Absaroka
University of Salzburg

 

Discussion

Eric Drott
UT Austin

10:45am
-
12:15pm
06I: Queer Temporalities
Location: M-303
Presenter: Kevin C Schattenkirk
Presenter: Cahlia A. Plett, University of California Riverside
Presenter: Emily Williams Roberts
 

Reframing the Utility of Nostalgia in Gay Chorus Singers’ Recollections of Painful Pasts

Kevin C Schattenkirk

Longwood University



Trans and Queer Religious Expression in Brazil: Music, Mission work, and Queer-Indigenous Temporalities

Cahlia A. Plett

University of California Riverside,



“I Ain’t Livin’ Life My Mama’s Way”: Reframing Nostalgia in Bluegrass through Queer Songwriting

Emily Williams Roberts

University of Chicago

12:30pm
-
1:30pm
SIG for Economic Ethnomusicology
Location: M-303
1:45pm
-
3:45pm
07I: Non-Human and More Than Human Connections
Location: M-303
Presenter: Jerry Hu
Presenter: Adriana Helbig
Presenter: Jade Conlee
Presenter: David W Samuels, New York University
 

The Songs of Cicadas: The Dong People’s Diverse Imaginaries of Cicadas in Dong Music

Jerry Hu

Hong Kong



Listening to the Bees: Enhancing the Sound-Based Language of Apiology

Adriana Helbig

University of Pittsburgh



Atmospheric Sovereignty: Reclaiming Multi-Species Relations in Hawai‘i Exotica

Jade Conlee

University of Virginia



The Human Scale As Ethnomusicological Template

David W Samuels

New York University

4:00pm
-
5:30pm
08I: Collective Convergences
Location: M-303
Presenter: Melissa Michelle Rios, University of New Mexico
Presenter: Pramantha Mohon Tagore, University of Chicago
Presenter: Lea Wierød Borčak, Aarhus University
 

The Las Cruces International Mariachi Conference: Redefining Performance Hierarchies on the Student Showcase Stage

Melissa Michelle Rios

University of New Mexico



From Salon to Stage: The All Bengal Music Conference and the Public Life of Hindustani Music

Pramantha Mohon Tagore

University of Chicago



Singing in Times of Crisis: Collective Singing, Social Trust, and Cultural Resilience in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions

Lea Wierød Borčak, Katrine Frøkjær Baunvig, Sasja Emilie Mathiasen Stopa

Aarhus University

Date: Saturday, 25/Oct/2025
8:30am
-
10:30am
09I: Transnational Perspectives in Música Urbana: Music Production, Style Hybridy, and Cultural Resonance in Contemporary Reggaetón and Reparto
Location: M-303
Chair: Jorge Luis Mercado Méndez
 

Transnational Perspectives in Música Urbana: Music Production, Style Hybridy, and Cultural Resonance in Contemporary Reggaetón and Reparto

Chair(s): Kaleb Goldschmitt (Wellesley College)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

“Estos son los códigos”: Musical Creation and Sonic Value in Producing Reggaeton

Jorge Luis Mercado-Méndez
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

“Va a tener que cantar reparto”: Money, Community, the Clave, and the Tresillo

Mike Levine
Christopher Newport University

 

Everything Comes From La Mata: Musical Genealogies and Creation in Chilean Reggaetón

Ana María Díaz-Pinto
University of California, Davis

 

Bad Bunny, Yonaguni, and Japón: Japanese Perceptions of Latin American Popular Music

Kelsey Milian-Lopez
City University of New York

10:45am
-
12:15pm
10I: Improvisation and Gestures
Location: M-303
Presenter: R.. Anderson Sutton, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Presenter: Jennifer W Kyker
Presenter: Oscar Smith
 

Discourses of Improvisation and Musical Essence in Korean Music: 21st Century Perspectives

R.. Anderson Sutton

University of Hawaii at Manoa,



Makwa: Rhythm and Improvisation in Zimbabwean Handclapping

Jennifer W Kyker

University of Rochester



Unity in Diversity: Regional Identity in Improvised Variations in North Balinese Sekatian

Oscar Smith

University of British Columbia

12:30pm
-
1:30pm
Rising Voices Student Open Meeting
Location: M-303
Date: Sunday, 26/Oct/2025
8:30am
-
10:30am
11I: Jazz and coloniality in the Netherlands
Location: M-303
Chair: Floris Schuiling, Utrecht University
 

Jazz and coloniality in the Netherlands

Chair(s): Floris Schuiling (Utrecht University,)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

Postcolonial Melancholia and the Sonic Golden Age: White Supremacist Nation-Building in the Netherlands

Thomas Overdijk
Utrecht University

 

Whiteness and free improvisation in the Netherlands c. 1970

Floris Schuiling
Utrecht University

 

Formal Dutch jazz education and the colonial politics of power

Loes Rusch
Utrecht University

 

Menjadi perantau: delayed diaspora and indigeneity in Maluku-Dutch improvised music

Reïnda Hullij
Utrecht University

10:45am
-
12:15pm
12I: Games, Play, and Festivals
Location: M-303
 

“All My Music is Based off My Home Games:”Musical Literacy and Public Play in Tabletop Role-Playing Game Fan Conventions

Andrew James Borecky

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



Transnationalism and South-South Connections in Mobile, Alabama’s Carnival

Emily Ruth Allen

University of South Carolina