BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference: Music Inside and Out
University of Huddersfield, 4-6 January 2018

Reminder: submission deadline 27 October 2017

(Call for contributions also online at http://bit.ly/2sMnSwI)

Call for contributions
The Department of Music and Music Technology at the University of Huddersfield is delighted to host the 2018 British Forum for Ethnomusicology and Royal Musical Association Research Students’ Conference. We welcome UK and international postgraduates to present their research in an inclusive, friendly, and supportive atmosphere. The conference will also include training and careers workshops, informal performance opportunities, and a variety of social and networking events. We are especially pleased to introduce Professor Kevin Dawe (University of Kent) and Dr Katherine Hambridge (University of Durham) as our keynote speakers.

In addition to proposals relating to any aspect of musical research, we particularly welcome submissions that engage with the conference theme of ‘music inside and out’. Today’s global politics of inclusion and exclusion raises fundamental questions around power, cultural expression, and the status of knowledge, challenging music researchers to think about these ideas in relation to their own work. Topics of relevance to the conference theme might include:
* Identities in/and music and musical research
* ‘Taking back control’: music and/as resistance
* Real and imagined borders: genres, methodologies, disciplines
* Truths and fictions: whose knowledge counts?
* Musical hegemonies and counter-hegemonies
* The position of the academy in wider society
We welcome both traditional and innovative formats for presentations relating to any areas of musical research, including composition, audiovisual media, performance, and/or other creative practices. Presentations should be 20 minutes in length, and will be followed by an additional 10 minutes for questions and discussion.

In addition to this general invitation, we encourage proposals for the following specific session calls. Participants may submit one abstract to the general call and an additional one to either of the sessions below (students may have more than one proposal selected for presentation).

Huddersfield Immersive Sound System (HISS)
As well as submitting proposals relating to their own practice under the general call, composers and sonic artists are welcome to submit in one of three categories for performance on the Huddersfield Immersive Sound System (http://www.thehiss.org):
1) Stereo or multichannel fixed-media works (up to 16 channels) – not normally exceeding 20 minutes in length
2) Single-screen audiovisual works (stereo or multichannel) – not normally exceeding 20 minutes in length
3) Piece and paper – a 30-minute slot for composers and sound artists to present a paper on a work and perform all or part of that work on the HISS.
All audio files should be submitted at 48kHz/24bit. Any specific speaker configuration and other documentation required to perform the work should be submitted in pdf format, clearly labelled with the author’s name and title of the piece.

Concentrate and Constraint: A Presenter/Composer Remix session
This two-part session offers a facilitated collaboration between presenters and composers, aiming to interrogate ways of communicating in relation to knowledge presentation. We encourage presentations on any topic as part of this call, and support presenters wishing to engage in new directions in their research or new delivery formats. Part One will consist of two presenters delivering 15-minute papers, followed by around 5 minutes each of discussion. Part Two of the session would be a constraint-driven compositional re-presentation of the debates, documentation apparatuses, and media (written, gestured, and spoken language; audio and visual examples and demonstrations) involved in the presentations from Part One. This will be a collaborative process between the composers and presenters. Further details about this call, including the support available for participants, are available from the committee via [log in to unmask]

Submission guidelines
Please send proposals of no more than 250 words to [log in to unmask] by Friday 27 October 2017. Emails should include your name, email address, affiliation, and the title of your presentation. Please make any particular space, format, or equipment requirements clear in addition to your abstract: all presentation rooms are equipped with a visualiser, whiteboard, piano, and standard audiovisual projection facilities.