Call for Papers: Tenth International Conference on Music and Minimalism, May 7–10, 2026, hosted by the University of Maryland, College Park
The year 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, and Catherine Christer Hennix’s The Electric Harpsichord, all epochal works that have helped define minimalism in the world of experimental music and the popular imagination. It is also the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Society for Minimalist Music. In this year of landmark anniversaries, the Tenth International Conference on Music and Minimalism will focus on celebrating and interrogating minimalist and postminimalist music in its many forms, examining its impact across the arts and global culture.
The Tenth International Conference on Music and Minimalism will take place May 7–10, 2026, hosted by the University of Maryland’s School of Music in College Park, MD, right outside Washington, DC. Concerts will include the music of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Julius Eastman, Meredith Monk, John Adams, and composer and organist Kali Malone.
The Society for Minimalist Music welcomes submissions from scholars and practitioners of minimalist and postminimalist music, broadly conceived. We invite papers on all topics related to minimalist music, and encourage papers that examine the following areas:
The fiftieth anniversary of 1976, and minimalist music created in or performed that year
The twentieth anniversary of the Society for Minimalist Music, and the historiography of scholarship and criticism focused on musical minimalism
Minimalism across the arts, including the visual arts, theatre, dance, film, television, and videogames
Minimalist music across genres, including ambient music, jazz, pop, rock, EDM, and global musical traditions
Minimalism and the political in a period of rising authoritarianism
Minimalism and local experimental music scenes beyond New York, especially in cities such as Washington, DC and Baltimore
The music of Kali Malone and other musicians who work with organ, just intonation, and drone-based idioms
Formats:
(1) individual papers (20 minutes)
(2) themed sessions (3–4 papers, each 20 minutes)
(3) lecture-recitals (30 minutes): for composers or performers to present or perform minimalism-related work
Please submit abstracts (250 words) to this Google Form by December 15: https://forms.gle/AYSSnKy5iGsWG6hY6
For themed sessions, please submit all abstracts together with an additional abstract describing your session theme (100 words).
Please email any questions to wrobin@umd.edu.
For more details on the call for proposals, please visit www.minimalismsociety.net/umd2026