Performance Research Journal
REMINDER - DEADLINE 22 April for Calls for Proposals for Vol. 30, No. 1: ‘On Music’ (Feb 2025)

Issue editors:
Tom Armstrong, Georgia Volioti and Christopher Wiley
Department of Music and Media, University of Surrey, UK

Aims, context and purpose:
This issue of the journal Performance Research seeks to reflect critically on the development of music performance studies across the early twenty-first century while simultaneously showcasing the current status of practice and research on music performance in a range of musical genres and envisaging future directions for the field. Key questions that it aims to address include: 

•	What is music performance studies and how can it address (some of) the challenges, complexities and uncertainties we face in the twenty-first century? 
•	How do scholars/scholar-practitioners currently engage imaginatively and critically with music performance in all its multifaceted elements and across different contexts? 
•	What does the field of music performance studies (broadly conceived) look like in relation to performance studies across the disciplines?

Twenty years ago, the main precursors to a budding field of music performance studies included the musicological branches of music theory and analysis, historically informed performance practice and foundational strands of music psychology research. Over the years, the increasing cross-fertilization of music(ological) studies by the theoretical work of eminent scholars – particularly, Philip Auslander (on liveness), Richard Schechner (on performativity), Georgina Born (on mediation and on a relational musicology), John Rink (on performance analysis), Nicholas Cook (on a systematic retheorization of musicological concepts and approaches) and Darla Crispin and Mine Doğantan-Dack among others (on artistic practice-as-research) – has opened up music performance studies into a flourishing transdisciplinary field of enquiry. But whereas on paper scholars often seemingly tackle the question, ‘What is music performance (studies)?’ by addressing it through a discussion of the emergence of a succession of disciplinary ‘turns’– for example, the ‘performative/practice’ turn, the ‘relational’ turn, the ‘practice/reflexive’ turn, the ‘non-human/materialist’ turn – plenty of work still remains to be undertaken on the theoretical and methodological bases with which music performance scholars and practitioners engage. In seeking critically to interrogate current and future directions in music performance studies, this issue of Performance Research aims to address how disciplinary currents and influences such as the above not only shape (in a ‘top-down’ manner) but are shaped, subverted, cross-fertilized and renewed by scholar-practitioners’ work from the bottom up. In the process, the issue will serve to reflect on the scope and nature of border-crossings and transdisciplinarity for the field of music performance studies. 
Ultimately, the publication of this issue has particularly timely relevance for re-evaluating the status of music (and music performance) within arts and humanities scholarship in the light of rapidly shifting sociopolitical, disciplinary, institutional and curricular debates and concerns given the many pressures on the contemporary neoliberal university. 

Contributions to this issue might include, but are not limited to, the following: 

●	epistemological and methodological issues in music performance research, synergies and oppositions in cross-disciplinary exchanges, mixing of concepts and methods, provocations and critical reflections demonstrated through concrete examples
●	practice-as-research (PaR) in music performance, including reflections, critique, new paradigms, PaR as stand-alone tool or as tool in a multi-method approach 
●	collaboration in performance in cross-genre performance, or cross-agency collaboration and human–non-human interactions 
●	improvisation in performance of any musical genre
●	indeterminacy in performance, for example through open notational approaches, live electronics, flexible ensemble interaction, unpredictability created through interventions in instruments/software/playing techniques and so on 
●	new interpretations and re-imaginings of musical scores and/or sound documents, including complex notations, re-envisioning narratives of performance history and so forth
●	performance analysis/performing analysis, to include critical reflections and/or new developments
●	applied empirical performance research such as in music pedagogy or in historical performance practice 
●	live and technologically mediated performance, inclusive of both physical instruments/material objects and new digital media, performers’ expanded skillsets via technology and/or collaboration
●	embodiment in performance, for example, the body in performance, gesture(s) in performance, notation and/as performance choreography
●	identities in/through performance 
●	gender and music performance, including trans performance, performing gender 
●	post-pandemic performance, incorporating issues such as performance precarity and performing inclusivity 
●	decolonizing music performance: prospects, challenges, provocations for reconstituting music performance beyond the margins 
●	music performance and the environment, for example, performance and the landscape, climate change and sustainability
●	music performance and healing, performance as therapeutic agent 
●	the criticism of performance, to include aesthetics and value judgement, evaluation of music performance 
●	creativity in music performance, examples from research and applied interventions
●	performer–audience behaviours, relations and interactions across different contexts 

Format
•	Authors are invited to submit an abstract of circa 500 words, structured as follows: title, aims/purpose, content outline, impact, conclusion. 
•	Following review and selection of abstracts, successful authors will be asked to submit draft articles of 3,500–4,000 (maximum) words in length (including in-text citations and reference list, and any footnotes, though the latter should be avoided unless strictly necessary). 
•	Non-standard formats such as artist pages, highly illustrated articles and other contributions that use distinctive layouts and typographies are also warmly encouraged. 
•	Authors are asked critically to address, explore or interrogate new theoretical and methodological directions for the field of music performance studies as an integral part of their contribution. Abstracts and prospective articles are invited from across the range of different musical repertories, traditions and methodologies in the study and practice of music performance (see the indicative themes/content above). 
•	The editors are looking to commission around 20 to 25 articles in total. They are committed to diversity and inclusion, and warmly encourage contributions from all sections of the academic community, including those who are likely to be under-represented in scholarship. 

Issue Contacts:
All proposals, submissions and general enquiries should be sent directly to Performance Research at: [log in to unmask]
 
Issue-related enquiries should be directed to the issue editors: 
Email: Tom Armstrong – mailto:[log in to unmask]
Georgia Volioti – mailto:[log in to unmask]
Christopher Wiley – mailto:[log in to unmask]

Schedule:
22 April 2024 – deadline for abstract submission
May 2024 – notification of accepted abstracts 
July 2024 – deadline for first-draft article submission
September 2024 – deadline for second-draft article submission (after revisions) 
October 2024 – peer review
November 2024 – final drafts
Spring 2025 – publication

General Guidelines for Submissions: 
•	Before submitting a proposal, we encourage you to visit our website – www.performance-research.org– and familiarize yourself with the journal. 
•	Proposals should be created in Word – this can be standard Microsoft Word .doc or .docx via alternative word processing packages. Proposals should not be sent as PDFs unless they contain complex designs re artist pages.
The text for proposals should not exceed one page, circa 500 words. 
•	A short 100-word author bio should be included at the end of the proposal text.
•	Submission of images and other visual material is welcome provided that there is a maximum of five images. If practical, images should be included on additional pages within the Word document.
•	Proposals should be sent by email to [log in to unmask]
•	Please include your surname in the file name of the document you send. 
•	Please include the issue title and number in the subject line of your email. 
•	Submission of a proposal will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere. 
•	If your proposal is accepted, you will be invited to submit an article in first draft by the deadline indicated above. On final acceptance of a completed article, you will be asked to sign an author agreement in order for your work to be published in Performance Research. 
•	Due to the large number of submissions we receive, we are unable to provide feedback on declined proposals.

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