Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the SEM 2026 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
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: 29th Aug 2026, 08:14:15pm EDT
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Daily Overview |
Reflections on the Returning Workshop: For Collections in Need of Communities
Vocalized Style-Shifting: A Sociophonetic Study of HBCU Students Negotiating Faith, Professional Opportunity, and Black Identity through Singing Style
UCLA,
Church Spaces and Places: Black Voices, Gospel Music, and Placemaking at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia,
“The Tunnel”: Exploring a Sense of Belonging, Interconnectedness, and Unity Through the Study of an HBCU Marching Band Ritual.
Oxford College of Emory University
Understanding Outrage: Intersectional Marxism, Punk, and Revolutionary Echoes
Florida State University
"Play the Fight Riff!": Affect and the Ethics of Moshing in Hardcore Punk
University of Michigan
“Burn it Down": Folk Punk Performance and Anarchist Action in Washington, D.C.
University of Maryland, College Park
Surrounding BaianaSystem’s Pirate Ship: Calculated Climax and Synchronized Chaos in Salvador, Brazil
Loyola University New Orleans
Doing Ethnomusicology in Times of Crisis: Companions in Conversation
Ethnomusicology Beyond the Human
Presentations in the Session
Interspecies Musicality and the Sentipensante Subject: Rethinking Agency in Human–Bird Sonic Relations
Like Mother, Like Daughter: Horses, Inheritance, and Musical Anthropomorphism at the British Dressage Winter Championships
Canaries in the laboratory: silent voices of neuroscience
On Being Human in Ethnomusicology
Listening for Silenced Narratives: Sounding Counter-Histories in Latin America
Presentations in the Session
“No Queremos Morir”: Cumbia Norteña Music and Citizen Insecurity in Lima, Perú
Música Folclórica and the Recontextualization of 'Traditional' African Music on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia
Scrape, Rattle, Tap: Sounding Silence and Blackness Through the Quijada in Son Jarocho
My Big Fat Greek Stereotype: The Sonic Production of Greek America on Screen
University of Illinois Springfield
Víoma and Stylistic Identity in the Festival Music of Greek Pogoni
Brown University
A Modal Heterotopia in Rebetiko: Performative Responses to Theoretical Incompatibilities
Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki
Under the Lid: The Extra-Musical Skills of Instrument Makers and Technicians
Presentations in the Session
Instruments before Sound: Bringing to Light Violin Makers’ Visual Techniques
From Piano to “Piano-Shaped Object”: Piano Technicians and Emotional Labor
Sewing Skills, Reframed: Refashioning Women’s Labor at Fender
Reimagining Arirang Across the Border: Musical Circulation and Collaboration Between North and South Korea
Asian Music Research Institute of Seoul National University,
Beyond Borrowing: The Cultural Epidemiology of Korean Rhythms in Balinese Baleganjur
University of British Columbia
A hybrid notational system for Korean Buddhist chant and its potential for further applications
N/A
"Painted Sounds for Western Eyes: Music, Gender, and Ritual in Kim Jun-Geun's Genre Paintings in the Chosŏn Open Port Period (1876–1910)"
University of Arizona
Singing Before Deaf Machines: Noraebang, Arbitrary Scoring, and the Poetics of Quantitative Refusal in South Korea
Vanderbilt University
Performing Rupture in the Soundscape: Community and Aesthetics in Pokémon Glitch Culture
Harvard University,
Signifying Locality in China’s Age of Technofuturism, Nationalism, and Traditionalism
Macau University of Science and Technology,
Cantonese Sound and Identity Across the Transnational Cantosphere
Presentations in the Session
Resisting Assimilation: Gongchepu and Cultural Identity in Early 20th‑Century Cantonese Music
“Reclaiming Our Cantonese Childhood”: Navigating Identity Through Traditional Cantonese Opera in Hong Kong Protestant Worship
Tracing a Half‑Century of Cantopop in Canada
Discussant
Paper title: New Locations New Sounds: the experiences of Syria refugee musicians in Germany.
University of Würzburg,
Music exchange and cultural policies between Germany and the Mashreq
University of Cologne
Who Gets to Be a Composer? Rethinking Musical Authority in Germany and Korea
1: Seoul National University; 2: Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
Jazz as Diasporic Formation: Spirituality, Mobility, and Intercultural Exchange
Presentations in the Session
Radical “Sankofa-ism”: Ancestral Recall, Spiritual Healing, and African Diasporic Utopianism in the Jazz of Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah
Sounding the Òrìṣà: Creative Paradox and Diasporic Formation in African Cuban Santería and Jazz
Transplanted Prodigy: New African Diasporas, Afro-Fusion and the Career Development of Ghanaian Drummer Paa Kow
Inside the Installation: Ethnographic Listening in Asian Diasporic Art
University of Texas at Austin
Hijacking Diaspora: FilAm Popular Songs as Home in the Transnational Imaginary
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Punake in the Diaspora: Cultural Stewardship and the Sounds of Tongan Heritage Across the United States
The University of Arizona,
“Bad Ecomusicology” and Dissident Environmental Affects
Present Dynamics in African Music: Liturgy and Pedagogy, Practice and Paradigms
Presentations in the Session
Ethnomusicology in South Africa: Beyond the tokenistic inclusion of African Music
Liquidating Localities: Christian Contemporary Worship as Cultural Colonialism
Hearing Africa in Europe: African Music and Transnational Choral Practices in Germany
Earwitness Accounts of Sexuality and Other Ethnopornographic Tales
Cornell University
Bringing Worlds into Being: Ritual Sound and Ontological Practice in Brazilian Umbanda
University of North Texas
Sonic Dominance during Rio de Janeiro’s Bailes de Corredor: Sovereignty and Masculinity in Contexts of Criminal Governance
Habib University,
From the Favelas to The World: Anitta and The Internationalization of Brazilian funk
University of North Texas,
Silenced Voices: The Ban on Female Solo Singing in Post-Revolutionary Iran as Political Trauma
University of Florida
Resonant Resistance: Sonic Agency, Gender, and the Re-sounding of Sacred Spaces in Iran
Cornell University
Music-making and Shifting Notions of Dissidence in Iran: The case of Shervin
University of Virginia
Gaao Mere Mann: Indian Senior Citizens and the Repertoire of ‘Old’ Hindi Film Songs
Ahmedabad University,
My Brother's Keeper: Tabla Provided Grief Therapy for the Performer
University of Minnesota,
To Move, One Must Be Grounded: Ragamala Dance Company and the Generative Force of Tradition in Diaspora
Falcon Heights
Meaningful Sounds: Protest Songs of the 2020-2021 Indian Farmer’s Movement
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Sounding Political Impasse in a World of Authoritarian Turn: Insights from Turkey
UC Berkeley
Polyphonic Governmentality: Toward a Global Concept History of Çok Seslilik in Modern Turkey
Florida State University,
“Is This Makam Music?”: Genealogy and Politics of “Aşkın Aldı Benden Beni” in Saygun's Yunus Emre
Colorado State University
Critical Insights for the Study of Music, Sound, and Sport: Power, Politics, and Pedagogy
Enacting Indigenous Sovereignty in Sound
Presentations in the Session
Reconstructing Sonic Practice: Rematriation and Indigenous Futurity among Muisca Communities
Replication and Indigenous Sonic Sovereignty in Mesoamerican Archaeological Sound
Recording, Notation, and Reshaping Meaning: “Shí Naashá” and Diné Sovereignty