Event details

The 14th Biennial International Music in 19th-century Britain conference will take place at the University of York, hosted by the School of Arts and Creative Technologies and the Humanities Research Centre.

The Programme Committee invites proposals for presentations as follows:

• Individual papers up to 20 minutes and lecture-recitals up to 45 minutes in length (with additional time for questions and discussion).
• Group presentations (eg round table or panel) up to two hours in length.

The Committee welcomes proposals on any topic relevant to music in 19th-century Britain, but contributions to the following themes are particularly sought (please note that ‘nineteenth century’ relates approximately to the period 1789 to 1914):

• music and literature; music and the visual arts
• music, religion and spirituality
• global musical networks and transnational migrations
• empire and/or colonialism and music
• cultural replication, cultural cringe and musical resistance to empire
• racism and otherness in British music and musical institutions
• British music and musicking abroad; ideas about Britain’s music from abroad
• music, science and new technologies
• music, landscape/environment and industrial heritage
• collections, preservation and digital musicologies
• impact and knowledge exchange activities

Our keynote speakers will include Dr Thozama April-Maduma (Senior Curator at the National Heritage & Cultural Studies Centre, University of Fort Hare, South Africa)

Submissions

Please send proposals to the conference mailbox in the following format, with your name, contact details and a short biography (100 words):

• Individual Papers: abstract up to 250 words
• Lecture-recitals: abstract up to 250 words (please indicate the length of your session)
• Group Presentation: overall rationale up to 300 words, with individual abstracts up to 200 words (please indicate the length of your session)

Please include a note of any specialist technical needs (audio-visual equipment for PowerPoint slides, sound and video recordings will be provided as standard; a piano will be available for lecture recitals).

• The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2025.
• You should send your submission via email to hrc-act-mncb2025@york.ac.uk

Notification of acceptance will be issued by 28 February, and a draft conference programme will be published by the end of March. Conference bookings will open in April 2025.

The conference will be held both in person and online.

Registration will open after the deadline for the call for papers.

Programme Committee:

• Christina Bashford (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
• Philip Burnett (University of York)
• Martin V. Clarke (The Open University)
• Rachel Cowgill (University of York)
• Rosemary Golding (The Open University)
• Paul Watt (University of Adelaide)