The fiftieth Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory (SMT) will be held in Baltimore, Maryland, from Thursday, November 4, to Sunday, November 7, 2027.
The Program Committee invites proposals on any topic of interest to our membership of professional and prospective music theorists, as long as the work has not been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed publications (print or electronic) at the time of submission and has not been presented at an annual conference of the SMT, AMS, CMS, SEM, or SAM. Proposals for posters and for sessions in innovative formats are encouraged.
The Committee strongly encourages all authors to visit the website of the SMT’s Professional Development Committee for advice and successful proposal samples from prior years.
Submission Procedure and Deadline
- Proposals are to be submitted electronically via the submission portal. The portal will open on December 14, 2026.
- Proposals must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET on February 15, 2027.
- Please note that proposal submission ceases precisely at the deadline. To avoid technical problems with submission, please submit at least twenty-four hours before the deadline. Proposals received after the deadline cannot be considered.
- Notifications of the Program Committee’s decisions will be sent in early June. Rejected proposals will remain anonymous; only the SMT Executive Director, in mailing out acceptance and rejection letters, will know the identities of the authors of these proposals.
Guidelines and Rules for All Proposals
- All proposals will be evaluated anonymously by the Program Committee and should exclude the author’s name and any other direct or indirect signal of authorship.
- References to the author’s own work must occur in the third person.
- Author tags must be removed from electronic files. (In Adobe Acrobat, go to the File menu, select Properties and delete the name from the Author box.)
- Links to external materials that compromise anonymity, including personal YouTube channels, websites, or other online resources that include the author’s name or some identifying information, are not allowed. Links to recordings or visualizations will only be allowed if they are anonymized and do not add appreciably to the materials of the proposal.
- When submitting the proposal online, authors will be prompted for identification and contact information.
- Proposals will not be considered if they exceed word limits or if an individual violates the rules on multiple submissions described below, under Participation Restrictions.
- While the use of generative AI is generally discouraged for constructing a submission, any use of generative AI in the process of research or writing must be disclosed to the committee in the proposal.
- The online submission form will request that authors provide five relevant keywords.
- Those who present at the conference must be members in good standing of the Society.
Papers
A submission for a single-author or joint-author paper must include the title and proposal text. The Program Committee may accept a proposed paper under the condition that it be transformed into a poster.
Accepted papers will be allocated 20 minutes for the paper presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. A sound system and LCD projector will be available for all presenters. Please indicate whether or not a piano is required. The Society cannot guarantee internet access for presentations.
- Anonymity: The proposal and supplementary materials should preserve the anonymity of the author(s) as described above.
- Proposal: The proposal (including notes) should be no more than 500 words. Each mathematical equation may be counted as one word.
- Keywords: The online submission form will request that authors provide five relevant and specific keywords; recommended are names of composers, theorists, methodologies employed, repertoires discussed, or anything distinctive to the proposal.
- Abstract: In addition to uploading your 500-word proposal and any supplementary materials, for the 2027 conference we ask that SMT proposers also include a 350-word abstract suitable for the program book and paste it into the indicated field. If your presentation is accepted, you will have the opportunity to edit your abstract at a later date.
- Supplementary materials: Successful proposals typically include appended supplementary materials (such as musical examples, diagrams, and selected bibliography) as necessary to substantiate an argument, demonstrate results, or clarify the proposal’s relationship to prior scholarship.
- The examples may include text annotations.
- Texts that are themselves analytical objects, such as quotations from treatises, archival documents, or translations, are also acceptable.
- Any text in the supplementary examples and captions should serve only to illuminate arguments already present in the 500-word proposal and should not introduce new examples, explanations, or evidence.
- A representative bibliography or list of works cited is strongly encouraged as part of the supplementary materials.
- Supplementary materials must not exceed four pages.
Posters
The Program Committee encourages proposals for a prominently featured Poster Session. Posters are an integral part of the conference and will be evaluated according to the same rigorous criteria as papers. Posters that deal with the fiftieth anniversary of the Society, the history of our field, or any other related topic are strongly encouraged.
A submission for a single-author or joint-author poster should indicate the preference for the poster format and must include the title and proposal for a poster. The Program Committee may accept a proposed poster under the condition that it be transformed into a paper.
Poster presenters will either bring a printed poster suitable for mounting on a display board or present their poster digitally by connecting their laptop or tablet computer to an LED screen. The Society encourages presenters to choose a printed poster as LED rentals pose a significant cost. Presenters may optionally augment the poster presentation with sound files (headphones required) and/or handouts. Accepted presenters will stay with their posters and interact with interested individuals, summarizing primary findings and answering questions about the research. The Committee encourages all those interested to visit the website of the SMT’s Professional Development Committee for guidance on presenting a poster.
- Anonymity: The proposal and supplementary materials should preserve the anonymity of the author(s) as described above.
- Proposal: The proposal (including notes) should be no more than 500 words. Each mathematical equation may be counted as one word.
- Abstract: In addition to uploading your 500-word proposal and any supplementary materials, for the 2027 conference we ask that SMT proposers also include a 350-word abstract suitable for the program book and paste it into the indicated field. If your presentation is accepted, you will have the opportunity to edit your abstract at a later date.
- Supplementary materials: Successful proposals typically include appended supplementary materials (such as musical examples, diagrams, and selected bibliography) as necessary to substantiate an argument, demonstrate results, or clarify the proposal’s relationship to prior scholarship.
- The examples may include text annotations.
- Texts that are themselves analytical objects, such as quotations from treatises, archival documents, or translations, are also acceptable.
- Any text in the supplementary examples and captions should serve only to illuminate arguments already present in the 500-word proposal and should not introduce new examples, explanations, or evidence.
- A representative bibliography or list of works cited is strongly encouraged as part of the supplementary materials.
- Supplementary materials must not exceed four pages.
SMT Special Sessions
A special session is proposed as a whole, rather than as a set of individual submissions. The session rationale and any associated individual paper proposals or supplementary materials should be submitted by the session organizer through the SMT website as a single package. Two formats are available: the integrated special session and the alternative format special session.
An integrated special session comprises a set of papers that are closely related in content, thoughtfully integrated, and framed by a session rationale. Each paper accepted in an integrated special session will be allocated 20 minutes for the paper presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. The Committee reserves the right to consider each paper separately and to program a paper with or without the others from a proposed integrated special session.
Alternative format special sessions are often organized in such a way that they do not fall within a standard scheduled timeslot, including panel discussions, workshops, flipped sessions, lightning talk sessions, or sessions with extended presentation times (30 minutes for each paper presentation and 15 minutes for discussion, the old SMT format). Because individual contributions typically do not fall within a standard 30-minute timeslot, an alternative format session is accepted or rejected in its entirety.
A sound system and LCD projector will be available for all presenters in either format. Please indicate whether or not a piano is required. The Society cannot guarantee internet access for presentations.
- Anonymity: The proposal and supplementary materials should generally preserve the anonymity of the author(s) as described above. With prior approval of the Program Committee chair, special session proposals may be exempted from certain of the guidelines listed above, including, in some cases, the rule of anonymity for participants. To discuss the possibility of exemptions, those wishing to propose such sessions must contact the Program Committee Chair no later than two weeks before the deadline.
- Session rationale: Proposals for special sessions must include a session rationale of no more than 500 words. Each mathematical equation may be counted as one word. Special sessions of either type may be either 90 or 180 minutes in duration. Please indicate the chosen duration in the session rationale.
- Paper proposals: All proposed special sessions must have individual proposals for all segments of the session (except for respondents). These should follow, where possible, the guidelines for paper proposals given above.
- Abstract: In addition to uploading your 500-word proposal and any supplementary materials, for the 2027 conference we ask that SMT proposers also include a 350-word abstract suitable for the program book and paste it into the indicated field. If your presentation is accepted, you will have the opportunity to edit your abstract at a later date.
Participation Restrictions
No one may appear on the program more than twice. Under no circumstances should an individual be involved in more than two proposals viewed by the SMT Program Committee.
An individual may participate in one of the following ways:
- Author or joint author of a paper or poster (whether in a regular session or special session)
- Organizer of an integrated special session (the organizer may also propose a paper for that same session)
- Organizer of an alternative-format special session (the organizer may also deliver a paper of no more than 30 minutes in that same session)
- Author or joint author of a scholarly paper or a presentation of more than 10 minutes as part of a session presented by a standing committee (Committee on Feminist Issues and Gender Equity, Committee on Race and Ethnicity, Professional Development Committee, Committee on Disability and Accessibility, and Committee on LGBTQ+ Issues). The Program Committee will not evaluate papers or presentations by the individual standing committees, but the chairs will submit complete descriptions of their sessions through the online portal by May 1, 2027.
An individual may participate in any of the presentation formats listed above and appear one other time on the program, in one of the following capacities:
- as a chair/respondent for a session
- as a performer
- as a presenter of a non-scholarly presentation in an alternative-format special session or standing committee session
- as a presenter of a scholarly presentation of no more than 10 minutes in an alternative-format special session or standing committee session
Participation in SMT Interest Group meetings is outside the purview of the Program Committee and is not relevant to the rules of participation given above. Names of presenters in Interest Group meetings will not appear in the print program.
Further Questions
If you have a question about your participation that does not seem to be covered by the guidelines above, please contact the Program Committee Chair.
For clarification or further information, please contact SMT Executive Director, Jennifer Diaz.
SMT 2027 Program Committee
- William Ayers, Chair (chair; pcchair@societymusictheory.org)
- Giulia Accornero
- Ben Baker
- Janet Bourne
- Antares Boyle
- Karl Braunschweig
- Leah Frederick
- Joon Park
- Judith Lochhead (ex officio)