CFP

Call for Papers

Fostering New Music and Its Audiences:

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition 30th Anniversary Conference

School of Music, University of Louisville, 6-7 March 2015

Keynote speakers: Robert Hasegawa (McGill University) and W. Anthony Sheppard (Williams College)

Since Witold Lutosławski won the first Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1985 for his Symphony No. 3, this international prize has been bestowed upon 27 other composers, including John Adams, Pierre Boulez, and Kaija Saariaho. (See http://grawemeyer.org/music/previous-winners.) Well over one hundred works are submitted each year for this award. The final panel of judges for the award consists of laypeople with a deep interest in contemporary classical music, in recognition of the founder’s commitment to music that reaches a nonspecialist audience while maintaining the highest artistic standards. The application guidelines stipulate that each entry (including a score, recording and supporting materials) becomes part of the extensive new music collection of the University of Louisville’s Dwight Anderson Music Library.

As part of the celebration marking the 30th year of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, the University of Louisville School of Music is hosting a conference to promote scholarly dialogue on new music. We invite papers on concert music and opera since 1985 from musicologists, theorists, composers, and interdisciplinary scholars, with a preference for topics pertaining to the music of Grawemeyer Award-winning composers or to works contained in the Music Library’s Grawemeyer Collection. (The searchable web catalogue of the collection is found at grawemeyermusic.louisville.edu.) We also invite proposals for papers that explore the position of contemporary music in society and its relationship to current audiences.

Paper presentations will be limited to 20 minutes and followed by a 10-minute discussion period.

Limited funding will be available for graduate students whose papers are selected.

Selected conference contributions may be chosen for inclusion in a published refereed collection.

Submission Guidelines

  1. In the body of the email, list the title of the paper, the author’s institutional affiliation and contact information, and A/V needs for presenting the paper.
  2. Attach a proposal of maximum 500 words. Supporting material (such as examples, diagrams, and bibliography) may be included; this should not exceed 3 pages. Do not include the author’s name or identifying comments in the proposal. Please use this format to label the proposal attachment: PaperTitle.Proposal.
  3. Attach a publication-ready abstract of 250-300 words. Do not include the author’s name or identifying comments in the abstract. Please use this format to label the abstract attachment: PaperTitle.Abstract.
  4. Attach a short biographical statement of maximum 150 words to include in the program. Please use this format to label the biographical attachment: PaperTitle.Biography


The deadline for submissions is November 10, 2014.
To submit a proposal, or for further information, please email the conference address: grawemeyerconference@louisville.edu