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, 07:19:45pm EDT
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Daily Overview |
| 7:00am - 9:00am |
SEM Council Location: Frangipani Room |
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| 8:00am - 9:00am |
Conference Registration Location: East Lounge |
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| 8:00am - 12:30pm |
SEM Board Location: Metz Suite |
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| 8:30am - 10:30am |
11A: Resources in the study and performance of African music in American Academies. Location: Whittenberger Auditorium Resources in the study and performance of African music in American Academies. Presentations in the Session Expanding the American Choral Curriculum Through African Choral Music: Arrangements of Kenyan Folk Songs. ulturally Responsive Pedagogical Strategies from African Choral Directors in U.S Universities Singing in (Ki)Swahili: Mitigating Challenges in Meaning and Understanding Open Portals: Invigorating African music studies in the US music departments. |
11B: Listening for Care: Gender, Labor, and Social Reproduction that Sustains Musical Worlds Location: Georgian Room Listening for Care: Gender, Labor, and Social Reproduction that Sustains Musical Worlds Presentations in the Session Sustaining Togetherness: Gendered Labor in Alevi Muhabbet Gatherings "This Is All I Can Do For You": Negotiating Care and Gendered Labor in Chipko’s Afterlives Sound, Care, and Gendered Labor in Mozambique during Crisis Between Scores and Cradles: Reproductive Labor and the Professional Musician in Bolivia |
11C: String Band Worlds: Bluegrass, Belonging, and Musical Exchange Location: Oak Bluegrass, Noise, and Railroad Memory at Monon World Headquarters Duke University Institutionalizing the Hang: Conferences, Community, and the Meeting Spaces of String Band Music Middle Tennessee State University, Resituating the Banjo: Performance, Authority, and Stylistic Fusion in Béla Fleck’s Music The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen Imagining Americana in Japanese Engagement with Bluegrass Music Indiana University, |
11D: Voicing the Unresolved: Listening at the Thresholds of Life, Death, and History Location: Walnut Voicing the Unresolved: Listening at the Thresholds of Life, Death, and History Presentations in the Session Inhabiting Indeterminacy: Singing, Absence and Unsettled Time in Kurdistan Voicing a Home in the Wound: Pain, Listening, and the Afterlives of War in Zana (2019) Resonances of the Restless Dead: Voice and Transcorporeality in Ukrainian Rusalki Songs Listening in the presence of…: Distributed aurality as theory |
| 11E: Audible Histories: Music, Memory, and Identity Through Film Location: Maple WE ARE NOT AFRAID: Music and Resistance in Apartheid PrisonsCaptions: full subtitles.Original languages: English, Xhosa, Zulu. Runtime: 65 mins 1: University of Connecticut,; 2: Undercurrent Film & Television Performing Black & Green: The African and Irish Musical Roots of Montserrat Bard College- Bronx, Songs of Living: Musical Life and Creativity among Twentieth-Century Village Women in Central China SOAS, University of London Film presentation: Who Has Seen the Sound? the University of Texas at Austin, |
11F: The Sonic and Aesthetic Politics of Japanese Anime Location: Redbud The Sonic and Aesthetic Politics of Japanese Anime Presentations in the Session Transmedia Women’s Bodies in Japanese Anime Voices A Cultural Canvas: Perception and Representation of Blackness in the Japanese anime Gachiakuta Voicing the Mukokuseki: The racial & dialectic politics of representation in anime characters and voice acting. The Aural Representations of Male Desire in Anime |
11G: Sounding In and Beyond Trauma Location: Sassafras Sounding In and Beyond Trauma Presentations in the Session Killing Me Softly: The Traumatic Mediation of Quiet in Contemporary Black Horror Listening in the Negative Space: Voice and Public Secrecy in Post-COVID Urban China The Acoustic and Non-Acoustic Sounds of Mutual Care Your Silence Speaks Volumes: Testimonial Injustice and the Perils of Narration |
11H: Expressive Defiance: Music, Dance, and Resistance Location: Persimmon Deviant Propaganda: Festivity and Femininity in Anti-ISIS Propaganda Music Yale University, “Boycott or Compliance”: The Soundtrack of 2026 Protests and War in Iran 1: University of Tennessee, Knoxville,; 2: Independent Filmmaker When Silence is Enforced, Dance Becomes the most Rebellious Act University of Alberta, The Perilous Fight: Musical Compilations as Sites of Resistance and Collective Political Action N/A |
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| 11I: Sonic Relations: Music, Community, and Place in China and Beyond Location: Dogwood Composing Place and Presence: Landscape and the Nature of Being in Jia Guoping’s 2014 piece The Pine-soughing Valleys Brigham Young University, Performing the Marriage Law: Lüju Opera, Cultural Reform, and Marital Imaginaries in Socialist China Shandong Sport University, Diasporic Musical Strategies in the Context of Heritage and Commercialization: Performance Practices and Musical Choices of Chinese Clan Associations in Jonker Walk, Malacca Xinghai Conservatory of Music Between Sanctity and Stigma: The Social Construction of Blind Musicians in China and Japan N/A |
11J: Improvisation as Archive in Pittsburgh Location: Charter Room Improvisation as Archive in Pittsburgh Presentations in the Session Stewarding Ephemeral Histories: Improvisation, Jazz, and the Community Archive in Pittsburgh Four Rivers: Archiving Loft Jazz in Post-Industrial Pittsburgh The Politics of Commemorating Improvisation: Roger Humphries, Black Geographies, and Pittsburgh’s North Side “Lift Off Judgement”: Social-Emotional Experience as Embodied Archive at Open Improvisation Lab |
11K: Sonic Temporalities: Kurdish Music, Media, and the Reimagining of Community Location: State Room East Sonic Temporalities: Kurdish Music, Media, and the Reimagining of Community Presentations in the Session Intermundane Collaborations: Remix and the Revivification of Kurdish Musical Icons Hebrew Chopi: Kurdish Jews in Israel and the Musical Making of a Digital Kurdistan Sacred Sound in the Age of Social Media: Yārsān Ritual Music and Online Mediated Identity Music as Resistance: Sound, Trauma, and Historical Consciousness in Kurdish Music |
11L: Musical Pathways in Taiwan: Indigeneity, Technology, and Tradition Location: State Room West Australism: Taiwanese Indigenous Music as a Pathway for Exploring the Austronesian World Taipei National University of the Arts Maternal and Queer Alliances in Amis Musicking in Postcolonial Taiwan PhD Candidate in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London Toward an AI-Assisted Analysis of Performance Practices in Historical Recordings of Taiwanese Hakka Folksongs 1: Graduate Institute of Ethnomusicology, National Taiwan Normal University; 2: Department of Music, National Taiwan University of Arts; 3: Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica Amplification and Sovereign Sensibility in Taiwanese Indigenous Communities National Taiwan University, |
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| 10:45am - 12:15pm |
12A: Haunted Economies: Ethnomusicology beyond Liberal Democracy Location: Whittenberger Auditorium Haunted Economies: Ethnomusicology beyond Liberal Democracy |
12B: Aquatic Mediations: Toward a “Blue Ethnomusicology” Location: Georgian Room Aquatic Mediations: Toward a “Blue Ethnomusicology” Presentations in the Session Island Logic: Roots, Reggae, and Postcolonial Critique Watery Vibrations and Hydroacoustic Transformations So Close, SOFAR: Terrible Intimacy and Sound Below the Ocean’s Okeanos |
12C: Beyond Jazz: Cuban Experimentalisms in Gender and Genre Location: Oak Beyond Jazz: Cuban Experimentalisms in Gender and Genre Presentations in the Session ‘Sonidos siderales’: Synthesizing Traditions in Cuban Music "The 'New Vanguard': Cuban Women in Jazz and Fusion (Fusión)" “At the Thresholds of Memory: Technologies of Transmission and Tools of transformación in the Recombinant Pianism of David Virelles” |
12D: Ethnomusicology and Music Teaching and Learning Location: Walnut Ethnomusicology and Music Teaching and Learning |
| 12E: Remapping Listening Publics Across the Global South Location: Maple Remapping Listening Publics Across the Global South Presentations in the Session From Public to Counterpublic: Rohingya Listening Practices and Nationalism Since 1961 Consumer Voice: Radio, Listening Publics, and the 1936 Palestinian Strike A “Merciful” and “Compassionate” Voice: Mediating Gender and Nation in Egyptian Women’s Magazines (1922–1952) |
12F: Materiality and Meaning of Instruments and Instrument-Building in Africa Location: Redbud Materiality and Meaning of Instruments and Instrument-Building in Africa |
12G: Mediating World Music: Authority, Authenticity, and Musical Tradition in a Global Age Location: Sassafras A Philosophy of World Music Instruction for the Age of AI Western Norway University of Applied Sciences; Education University of Hong Kong Reclaiming the Voice: The Naxi Metal Fusion of Five Penalties and the Sonic Subversion of "Authentic" World Music No.2 High School of East China Normal University Evolution, Expressive Authority, and Politics of Mediation in the Irish Slow Air Tradition: A Case Study of The Wounded Hussar Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick |
12H: Sonic Encounters: Ritual, Race, and Cultural Pluralism in Peru Location: Persimmon “Hacer daño”: Magic and the Gendered Withdrawal in a Cajamarca Festival University of Vienna, Esa Pollerita…: The social life of the pollera and the ¿subversion of racism? in the sonic political interruptions of Milena Warthon’s music. UC Riverside, Feverish Lions in Lima: Atmospheres around the Chinese New year in Lima, peru University of Texas at Austin, |
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| 12I: Making Home Through Music: Diaspora, Heritage, and Belonging in North America Location: Dogwood Elective Heritage: Identity Construction among Highland Bagpipers in Texas University of Sheffield Creating Home(land) in the Bay Area: The Diasporic Presence of Amazigh Musical Communities University of California, Berkeley Building a Home Away from Home: Brazilian Diasporic Communities along Colorado’s Front Range University of Colorado Boulder |
12J: Phantasmatic Geographies of Music, Heritage, and Cultural Lineage Across Eurasia Location: Charter Room “Build Your Conservatories in the Mountains”: Chasing the Phantasm of Rural Anatolia University of California, Santa Cruz On Top of Mount Budalang: Russian Minorities and the Recontextualization of Folksongs in Post-Invasion Tbilisi Artists for Community Transformation The Instrumental Cry: Re-Voicing Albanian Women’s Laments through the Solo Violin University of California Santa Cruz |
12K: Invented Traditions: The Revival of Musical Instruments in Central Asia Location: State Room East Invented Traditions: The Revival of Musical Instruments in Central Asia Presentations in the Session Strings of Memory: The Jetigen Revival in Kyrgyzstan From the Epic Memory to Sonic Practice: The Reconstruction of Kyrgyz Signaling Instruments Kieli Aspaptar: Sacred Materialities and More-Than-Human Lives of Revived Musical Instruments |
12L: Geographies of Auto-Tune: Pitch Correction and Vocal Practice in Global Contexts Location: State Room West Geographies of Auto-Tune: Pitch Correction and Vocal Practice in Global Contexts |
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