Events

‘Second Hands’ and ‘Second Thoughts’: Multilayered Written Artefacts of 19th- and 20thcentury Austrian and German Music

10-11 October 2025, University of Hamburg (Germany)

In cooperation with the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research (IAGMR), University of Surrey, this international workshop focuses on 19th- and 20th-century music manuscripts from Austria and Germany. Using the concept of ‘multilayered written artefacts’, the event explores how various written layers — both original and added — shape the editing, performance, and archiving of musical works. At the centre of discussion are ‘second hands’ and ‘second thoughts’: revisions by composers, annotations by others, and later interventions that influence how music is transmitted and understood. Contributions examine how such layers emerge, interact, and reflect broader aesthetic, cultural, and political contexts, especially in transnational and multilingual settings. By combining perspectives from manuscript studies and musicology, the workshop highlights the often-overlooked significance of layered manuscripts in shaping music history and performance practice. We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of Yamaha Music Europe in providing a grand piano — allowing live performances to become a vibrant part of the workshop.

The IAGMR Director, Professor Jeremy Barham, the Deputy Director, Dr Manuel Cini, and Professor Benjamin Korstvedt from the Advisory Board have taken part in this Conference.

Please click the link below to download the conference programme:

IAGMR CONFERENCE 2024

The Fourth International Conference of the IAGMR

6-7 September 2024, Durham University, Hatfield College

Link to registration.

The Institute of Austrian and German Music Research (IAGMR) is pleased to invite papers, panels, and lecture recitals for its international conference at Durham University, on 6-7 September 2024. This two-day conference is an opportunity to discuss all aspects of Austrian and German music and contemporary academic discourse surrounding it. We especially invite perspectives from a range of disciplines, including – but not limited to – historical and cultural musicology, music analysis, performance studies, psychology, philosophy, and screen studies. Submissions on all relevant topics will be considered, but the following prompts may merit special consideration:

  *   Composers with significant anniversaries in 2024 (e.g. Bruckner, Schoenberg, Schmidt). Particular attention may be given to critical reflections on canon construction, the impact of historical distance on understanding discourse and polemics, and the contrast between academic concerns and ‘popular culture’, both now and historically.
  *   Contemporary Austrian and German musical practices.
  *   Cultural exchange and issues of ‘nationalism’, ‘transnationalism’, etc.
  *   Marginalised composers and performers from Austria and Germany, due to class, gender, race, or otherwise.
  *   Music and musical life in interwar Austria and Germany.
  *   Music in/of Austrian/German/Jewish émigré culture in the US, the UK, and beyond.
  *   The relationship between music and politics.
  *   Studies of performance styles, particularly those informed by historical recording and archival performance materials.

Presentation formats: 20-minute papers, 60-minute panels, 45-minute lecture-recitals

Submissions should include the following: 250-word abstract, indication of equipment required, 50-word biography, statement of attendance (in-person/remote).

Deadline for submissions: 5pm on Friday 5 April 2024 by email to Ardi Echevarria at rafael.d.echevarria@durham.ac.uk with the title “IAGMR 2024 Submission”. The Committee will notify authors of its decision by 1 May 2024.

This conference will feature a keynote lecture from Professor Benjamin Korstvedt (Clark University). We encourage everyone to attend this conference in person, although remote presentation and attendance will be an option for those unable to travel.

The Universities of Durham and Surrey are fully committed to the principles of equality and diversity enshrined in the Race Equality Charter, the Athena SWAN Charter, the Disability Confident scheme, and through its support of LGBTQ+ communities.

Conference Committee:
Angus Howie (Durham University)
Jeremy Barham (University of Surrey)
Katherine Hambridge (Durham University)
Philip Keller (Durham University)
Rafael Echevarria (Durham University)

Please click the link below to download the conference programme:

IAGMR CONFERENCE, MAY 19-20, 2023

‘Music and Conflict in Austrian and German Contexts: The Politics and Escapism of Wartime Culture’

Department of Music and Media, University of
Surrey (Hybrid)

This conference sets out to explore the various relationships between music and war across historical and contemporary Austrian and German contexts. In particular, the twin functions of music as either a product of war or a form of resistance against it are of interest. Papers might address the ways in which music has and continues to figure as a form of escapism, lamentation, or satire in times and places of war, conflict, violence, and military aggression in Germanophone lands. The historical remit of this conference is completely open to explore the deep involvement of musical composition, performance, criticism, and reception within any period of Austrian and German history.

This conference sets out to explore the various relationships between music and war across historical and contemporary Austrian and German contexts. In particular, the twin functions of music as either a product of war or a form of resistance against it are of interest. Papers might address the ways in which music has and continues to figure as a form of escapism, lamentation, or satire in times and places of war, conflict, violence, and military aggression in Germanophone lands. The historical remit of this conference is completely open to explore the deep involvement of musical composition, performance, criticism, and reception within any period of Austrian and German history.

We are particularly keen to receive papers from any subdiscipline of music, or music-adjacent discipline with a focus on music and war in Austria and/or Germany, including:

• Historical and Cultural Musicology
• Music Analysis
• Performance Studies
• Composition
• Archival Studies
• Music Psychology
• Music Philosophy and Aesthetics
• German/Austrian
  Historical/Cultural Studies
• Screen (Music) Studies
• Disability Studies

Presentations: 20-minute Papers, 60-minute Panels, 45-minute Lecture-Recitals, 10-minute Compositions (plus 10-min presentations).

Submissions should include the following: 250-word abstract, indication of equipment required, 50-word biography, statement of attendance (in-person/remote).
Deadline for submissions: Friday 17 March 2023, 5pm by email to angus.a.howie@durham.ac.uk.
The Committee will notify authors of its decision by 6 April 2023.

This conference will feature a lecture-recital by the 2022-23 Artist in Residence at the Department of Music and Media, pianist and researcher Anna Scott (Royal Conservatory of The Hague and University of Leiden). We encourage everyone to attend this conference in person, but there will be a hybrid option for those who are unable to travel.

The University of Surrey is fully committed to the principles of equality and diversity enshrined in the Race Equality Charter, the Athena SWAN Charter, the Disability Confident scheme, and through its support of LGBTQ+ communities.

Conference Committee:
Angus Howie
Anna Scott
Erik Levi
Jeremy Barham
Manuel Cini

Please click the link below to download the conference programme:

IAGMR ZOOMBARS – 2022

Session 6 – Ethnomusicology in German speaking Centres – December 5th, 2022 – 5.30pm [GMT]

This online Zoombar meeting, organised by the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, consider the application of ethnographic methodologies to German-speaking countries.

This session, led by Prof Jeremy Barham (University of Surrey), will be formed of the following academics:

We kindly invite you to join us via Zoom on Monday 5th December at 5.30 PM using the following link.

Session 5 – Contemporary Austrian and German composers – October 31st, 2022 – 5.30pm [GMT]

This online Zoombar meeting, organised by the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, focuses on the contemporary Austrian and German composers Bernhard Lang, Georg Nussbaumer, and Peter Ablinger.

This session, led by Angus Howie (Durham University), will be formed of the following academics:

We kindly invite you to join us via Zoom on Monday 31st October at 5.30 PM using the following link.

Session 4 – Musicology and Performance – June 27^th, 2022 – 5.30pm [GMT]

This online Zoombar meeting, organised by the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, focuses on the integration of and relationship between musicology and performance.

This session, led by Angus Howie (Durham University), will be formed of the following academics:

We kindly invite you to join us via Zoom on Monday 27th June at 5.30 PM using the following link.

Session 3 – Music and Politics – May 30^th, 2022 – 5.30pm [GMT]

This online Zoombar meeting, organised by the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, focuses on the connection between music and politics within the community of the IAGMR scholars.

Topics include the reception of Beethoven’s music in Nazi-occupied European countries, symphony concert in Nazi Germany and Japanese-German musical relations in the early decades of the 20^th century.

This session, led by Bianca Schumann (Universität Wien), will be formed of the following academics:

We kindly invite you to join us via Zoom on Monday 30th May at 5.30 PM using the following link.

Session 2 – The Current Research of the IAGMR Community – April 25^th, 2022 – 5.30pm [GMT]

This online Zoombar meeting, organised by the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, focuses on the ongoing research of members of the IAGMR community.

Topics include Viennese reception history, gender discourse, and the genesis of musicology as an academic discipline. The relationship between these individual research projects and the wider scholarly community will be addressed.

This session, led by doctoral student Manuel Cini (University of Surrey), will be formed of the following academics:

• Angus Howie (Durham University)
• Dr Genevieve Arkle (University of Bristol)
• Dr Alexander Wilfing (Masaryk University Brno)

We kindly invite you to join us via Zoom using the following link.
The event is free to attend!

Session 1 – Stories from the Archives – March 14^th, 2022 – 5.30pm [GMT]

The online inaugural meeting, organised by the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, focuses on the experiences of scholars who have undertaken archival work in centres of interest to Austro-German researchers.

The panel, headed by Doctoral student Angus Howie (Durham University), will be formed of the following researchers:

• Dr Beth Snyder (Royal College of Music)
• Dr Nicholas Attfield (University of Birmingham)
• Dr Nicole Grimes (University of California, Irvine)

In particular, the session will deal with practical things such as how to gain access, what to take, how to plan the archival research trips, as well as anecdotal stories. It is expected to be particularly useful to early career researchers (including undergraduate and postgraduate students) and those with limited archival experience.

We kindly invite you to join us via Zoom using the following link.

PAST EVENTS

Inaugural Conference: September 2021

The Institute of Austrian and German Music Research (IAGMR) in the Department of Music and Media at the University of Surrey is delighted to announce the opening of registration for its inaugural conference: 

Revisiting Austrian and German Music: from the ‘Spring of Nations’ to the Cold War

September 17–18, 2021

The event is online and free to all. 

The conference includes three keynote papers:

Mark Berry (Royal Holloway, University of London): ‘Wagner’s Actuality’

Caroline Kita (Washington University in St Louis): ‘Sounding Difference: Revisiting Jewishness and Otherness in Austrian and German Music’

Nick Attfield (University of Birmingham):  ‘Austrofascism, Music, and the Austro-German’ 

as well as a lecture-recital by Anna Scott (Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University): ‘Brahms in a Sharper Key: the Politics of Performance Style’

This conference gives an opportunity to rethink, revise, and renew understanding of Austrian and German music of the 19th and 20th centuries through interrogating historical and scholarly paths towards canonization or obscurity, popularity or neglect, and cultural centres or peripheries.

The conference considers music primarily, though not exclusively, from c. 1848 to the 1960s—the ‘Spring of Nations’ to the Cold War—as it emerged during periods of intense cultural and social change in the lives of these nations and neighbouring regions, and in the context of wider European, and indeed global, interconnections which have continued to shape geo-political conditions to this day. The conference aims to render the ‘unmarked’ ‘marked’, the familiar unfamiliar, and, through questioning the very formulation ‘Austro-German’, to explore new methodologies for reconceiving canonic music,, and to open up new avenues of research in neglected areas and overlooked repertoire.

Please click the link below to download the conference programme:

The IAGMR acknowledges the generous support of the Royal Musical Association and the Department of Music and Media at the University of Surrey in making this event possible.

Conference committee:

Professor Jeremy Barham
Professor Erik Levi
Dr Beth Snyder
Dr Genevieve Arkle

The University of Surrey is fully committed to the principles of equality and diversity enshrined in the Race Equality Charter, the Athena SWAN Charter, the Disability Confident scheme, and through its support of LGBTQ+ communities.

IAGMR Symposium – November 4th, 2020, 1 – 6pm [GMT]

The Institute of Austrian and German Music Research at the University of Surrey invites you to attend its first research symposium on Wednesday 4 November, 1pm to 6pm. The symposium is free to attend and will take place on Zoom.

To register for the event, please click HERE. Once you have registered you will receive the zoom link and all relevant details via email.

The event comprises an introduction to the IAGMR and the presentation of research currently being undertaken by its Executive Board members. We are delighted also to welcome two members of the Advisory Board, Dr Natasha Loges (Royal College of Music) and Dr Florian Scheding (University of Bristol), who will be co-presenting a session entitled ‘Canonicity and victimhood’, after which you are welcome to partake in an extended Q & A forum.

The symposium will begin and end with streamed performances given respectively by members of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music (the latter in partnership with the AHRC-funded ‘Music, Migration and Mobility’ project, directed by Norbert Meyn. Instructions for accessing the streamed performances will also be provided upon registration.

Please find the programme of the symposium below or download it from the following link:

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us via email, and we look forward to welcoming you on November 4th.

Jeremy Barham
Erik Levi
Beth Snyder
Genevieve Arkle