Research News
CFP: Lithuanian Musicology Special Issue 28
Long relegated to the sidelines of music scholarship in the Baltic States, popular muiscs and music cultures have recently emerged as a vital domain of research and interest, both within and beyond the academy. Recent work, often bridging methodologies of historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and sociology, has challenged long-held assumptions about the capacity of state authority to control cultural production, about the ability of musicians to leverage the affordances and porousness of political and economic regimes to advance their work and even to resist or inflect authoritarian power, and about the fragility, contingency, and opacity of the archival record itself.
To mark the fiftieth issue of the biennial Baltic Musicological Conference, the journal Lietuvos muzikologija/Lithuanian Musicology announces a call for submissions on the topic “Popular Musics of Baltic Europe: History, Memory, Historiography.” The editors of this special issue, to be published in 2027, welcome a wide range of articles on the histories of popular musics and music-making in the region, touching upon—but not limited to—such themes as:
- underground and alternative cultures and scenes
- technologies of production and mediation
- samizdat, magnitizdat, and other DIY forms of music-making and music culture
- migration and emigration/immigration
- music-making amidst and across political transition
- festivals, discotheques, concerts and clubs
- international collaborations and networks
- problems and challenges of archival and oral-history research of popular musics
- transmission of knowledge, network cultivation, and marketing within and beyond the region
- structures of support for music-making, whether formal or informal
Submissions of no more than 6000 words will be welcomed through 31 October 2026. The language of the issue will be English. The editors of the special issue Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) and Kevin C. Karnes (Emory University), also welcome inquiries. Submissions should be emailed to ruta.staneviciute@lmta.lt .
Lietuvos muzikologija/Lithuanian Musicology is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. It is indexed on SCOPUS; ERIH PLUS; EBSCO Humanities International Index; EBSCO Humanities International Complete; British Humanities Index; MLA International Bibliography; and RILM Abstracts of Music Literature. Further information, previous issues, and guidelines for contributors are available at https://xn--urnalai-cxb.lmta.lt/en/journal/lithuanian-musicology/
2026 06 16
International Symposium
“Posthumanism and Contemporary Artistic Practices”
7-8 May 2026
LMTA Balcony Theatre (Gedimino pr. 42, Vilnius)
MAY 7
11.00-11.15 – Registration and Introduction
11.15-12.15. Keynote Lecture | Moderator: Audronė Žukauskaitė
Justyna Stępień. Thinking with and for More/than/human World in Artistic Practices
12.15-12.30 – Coffee Break
Panel 1. More-than-Human Pasts/Futures | Moderator: Audronė Žukauskaitė
12.30-13.00. Denis Petrina. Cosmo(sym)poiesis for the Anthropocene
13.00-13.30. Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė. Decolonizing the Human from the Self: Aesthesis, Hybrid Entanglements, Feral Futures
13.30-14.00. Julia Krupa. More-than-Human Archives: Herbal Herstory as a Method of Co-Creation with Plants
14.00-15.00 – Lunch
Panel 2. Vibrant and Inert Matters | Moderator: Rūta Stanevičiūtė-Kelmickienė
15.00-15.30. Julija Bagdonavičiūtė. Changing Materialities in Contemporaneity. Towards an Instrumental Migration Practice
15.30-16.00. Asta Pakarklytė. Making Inaudible Forces Audible: A Deleuzian Drift
16.00-16.30. Arūnė Baronaitė. Purvas (Mud)
16.30-16.45. Coffee Break
Panel 3. Machinic Assemblages | Moderator: Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė
16.45-17.15. Audronė Žukauskaitė. Nonhuman Cognition And/At Play: Between Different Scales and Temporalities
17.15-17.45. Rokas Vaičiulis. Challenges to the Art-Aesthetics Relation in Posthumanist Thought: C. Wolfe and A. Wilson
17.45-18.15. Natallia Sarakavik. Algorithmic Power: Feminist Critique and Artistic Practices
18.15-19.15 – Reception
MAY 8
Panel 4. Bodies and Memories | Moderator: Denis Petrina
11.00-11.30. Marius Markuckas. Disability Art as a Model of Human Creativity
11.30-12.00. Vytis Jankauskas. Posthumanism in Dance: Expanded Choreographic Practices Beyond Anthropocentrism
12.30-13.00. Evren Karayel Gökkaya, Ayşe Ekici. What Matter Remembers: Contemporary Art Practices in Turkey From a Posthumanist Memory Perspective
12.30-12.45 – Coffee Break
Panel 5. Multispecies Encounters | Moderator: Julija Bagdonavičiūtė
12.45-13.15. Elo Masing. Music with Birds: Interspecies Collaboration
13.15-13.45. Chiara Aquilani, Davide Monti. Music in Human-Horse Relations
13.45-14.15. Martyna Groth. The Herd: Migration of Humans and Animals
14.15-15.15 – Lunch
15.15-16.15. Keynote Lecture | Moderator: Denis Petrina
Marietta Radomska. Non/Living Matters: On Posthumanising Art Practice
16.15-17.15. Coffee and Connections
2026 04 24
Festival “Mikrofest Vilnius 2026” and Symposium “Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful”
The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA), ISCM Lithuanian Section and the International Ekmelic Music Society Salzburg are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for the Symposium “Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful” within the “Mikrofest Vilnius 2026” at the LMTA in Vilnius between October 1 and 3, 2026. “Mikrofest Vilnius 2026” will consists of lectures, workshops and concerts featuring Frank Stadler, Vytautas Germanavičius, Juhani Nuorvala, Elisa Järvi, Hossam Mahmoud and Agustin Castilla-Ávila, among others.
We invite submission of abstracts of up to 300 words. Papers may address the music of any period, concerning microtonal research issues such as tuning systems, historical aspects or new microtonal compositions. Demonstrations and lecture recitals are very welcome. Papers to be presented should be 45 minutes in length (35 min. presentation and 10 min. discussion).
Papers should be presented in person. Online papers might also be included at “Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful” (to be decided by the commission).
Abstracts (in English) can be sent to castillaavila@hotmail.com
The language of the symposium is English.
Call for Papers deadline: May 15th, 2026
There are no congress fees. Participants are entitled to attend any presentations at the symposium.
For any questions, please contact Agustín Castilla-Ávila: castillaavila@hotmail.com
2026 04 02
International Conference
Women in Music: Narrating and Resounding (Auto)Biographies
Organized by
Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre
University of the Arts Helsinki
Research Association Suoni
IMS Study Group “Music and Cultural Studies”
Vilnius, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre
14–16 April 2027
CALL FOR PAPERS
Submission deadline: 1 October 2026
The Performing Arts Research Centre (PARC) of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre is pleased to announce a conference on women’s (auto)biographies in music studies and sound art. The conference is organized in collaboration with the University of the Arts Helsinki, the Suoni research association, and the IMS study group “Music and Cultural Studies” as part of a series of ongoing symposiums bringing together groups of researchers from Northern, Baltic, and Central Europe working on related topics.
(Auto)Biography is constructed under the influence of rhetorical strategies, determined by contemporary ideology and politics, providing wide possibilities for recognizing, investigating, and defining it in the context of scholarly discourses (Tatjana Marković 2010, Christopher Wiley 2019). Established as an individual genre in the eighteenth century, music biography as well as autobiography were often marginalized within the discipline of musicology. Challenging the traditional great composer and musician narrative by examining how biographies (and the ideologies behind them) influence musical canons and historical understanding, recent music studies focus on various factors—social, political, cultural, and economic—that shape musical (auto)biography (Melanie Unseld 2014, Leah Broad 2023, Samantha Ege 2024).
(Auto)biography as musicological discourse refers to the scholarly study of how musicians’ life stories, both written and embedded in their music, construct identity, influence reception, and serve as cultural texts, and how music itself becomes (auto)biographical for both artist and listener. Aiming to move away from romanticized life stories toward critical analyses of the writing or resounding biography, this conference seeks to push the boundaries of the field by interrogating the intersections of gender with the materiality of the archive, the ‘sonic’ performativity of the self, and the relational networks of creative life. This approach treats the performing body and physical objects as biographical sites, while foregrounding the collaborative networks that sustain musical creation. Furthermore, we invite critical reflection on the archive and its limitations, encouraging a dialogue on the methodologies used to navigate archival silence and the ephemeral documentation of women’s musical lives. The conference committee welcomes contributions on any topic or issue related to women’s and music history and/or contemporary practice, including critical perspectives on (auto)biography.
Potential themes might include (but are not limited to):
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Music as narrative: musical works as autobiographical statements, sonic diaries, or fictional musical biographies, even when not explicitly created as such.
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Musician’s writings: autobiographies, letters, memoirs and other collections as a source for understanding artists’ self-perception, promotion strategies, and construction of their public image.
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Performance of Self: artistic use of narrative to shape identities, perform their “selves,” and position themselves within society, bridging private and public personas.
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Challenging canons: exploring the ideologies of musical biographies in order to challenge historical assumptions and the limitations of traditional narratives.
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Cultural & ideological reflection: musical (auto)biographies as a reflection of the cultural, political, and media landscapes of their time.
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New approaches: promoting new biographical approaches in contemporary musicology; combining musicology with interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary analysis to understand the complex interplay between music, narrative, and identity.
Conference convenors: Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre), Nuppu Koivisto-Kaasik (University of Helsinki)
Program committee: Anja Bunzel, Leena Julin, Anne Kauppala, Nuppu Koivisto-Kaasik, Tatjana Marković, Lauma Mellēna-Bartkeviča, Saijaleena Rantanen, Rūta Stanevičiūtė
Submission
The conference will take place in person, and the conference language is English. Proposals are invited for individual papers (30 min.: 20 min. presentation and 10 min. Q&A), and study sessions (up to 90 min.). Proposals for artistic research papers that include performances are to be submitted in the individual papers category (30 min.).
Papers
We invite abstracts of no longer than 300 words, including five keywords and an optional list of references (max 10).
Study sessions
The study session organizer should submit the panel abstract and all individual abstracts (200 words each) in one document, with a full list of participant names and email addresses.
Please submit proposals as a doc/odt/rtf attachment to mokslas@lmta.lt by 1 October 2026. The following format should be used:
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Name, affiliation and contact email address
• Type of presentation (select one from: study session, individual paper)
• Title of presentation
• Abstract (300 words maximum; in the case of study session, include a general abstract followed by individual abstracts, in total 1200 words maximum)
• Keywords
• CV (100 words maximum; in case of panels, CVs of all participants)
Accepted speakers will be informed by 1 November 2026. There is no conference registration fee. The organizers will invite the doctoral candidates and early career scholars accepted to present at the conference to apply for grants to support their participation (accommodation) in the conference. Award amounts will depend on the number of applications received.
The selected papers will be invited for publication in the international peer-reviewed scientific journal “Lithuanian Musicology” (indexed in SCOPUS, EBSCO, RILM, ERIH PLUS). The conference organizers look forward to receiving your submissions!
Contact e-mail:
Rūta Stanevičiūtė, mokslas@lmta.lt
2026 02 17
Baltic Musicological Conference “Music History Beyond State Borders: Micro-, Meso-, and Macro-Regionality of Musical Culture”. Call for Papers
For more information: https://lmta.lt/en/baltic-musicological-conference-call-for-papers/
April 2, 2024
Call for Papers: The National Library of Lithuania Annual Conference
As part of the celebration of the 700th anniversary of Vilnius, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania invites researchers and practitioners to the international conference, “Europe. Capital. Transformations: Vilnius in the 19th-21st Centuries”, which will take place on October 19-20, 2023 at the National Library of Lithuania, Vilnius.
For more information: https://lmta.lt/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Kvietimas_Europa.Sostine.Tapsmas_EN_kor.pdf
Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania information
March 3, 2023
Research Development Strategy 2030 of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre has been Approved
Read more: https://lmta.lt/en/english-research/research-development-strategy-of-lmta/
December 23, 2022
CHANSE Call – “Transformations: Social and Cultural Dynamics in the Digital Age”. International Project Selected for Funding:
“DIGISCREENS: Identities and Democratic values on European digital screens: Distribution, reception, and representation”.
Project Leaders (PL) and Principal Investigators: Maud Ceuterick, University of Bergen (PL); Lina Kaminskaitė Jančorienė, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre; Maria Jansson, Orebro University; Adelina Sanchez, University of Granada
Funding Organisations (Country): RCN (Norway), LMT (Lithuania), FORTE (Sweden), AEI (Spain)
September 12, 2022
International conference of music theory Principles of Music Composing: “Aspects of Communication”. Call for Papers
For more information: https://www.lks.lt/en/news/2022/05/23/22nd-international-conference-music-theory-call-papers/
June 30, 2022
International Baltic Musicological Conference “Music and Visual Culture: Score, Stage & Screen”. Call for Papers
For more information: https://lmta.lt/en/the-biennial-baltic-musicological-conference-call-for-papers/
June 21, 2022