AMS

AMS Allegheny Chapter Meeting
2025-03-01 | West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, United States
The Allegheny Chapter of the American Musicological Society will hold its spring meeting on Saturday, March 1, 2025, at West Virginia University. The program committee invites proposals for individual papers, lecture-recitals, seminar panels, or other presentation formats on any subject of musicological interest. Following the conference, participants will have the opportunity to attend a concert featuring the Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble VOCES8 at 7:30pm in the Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre.
Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words along with the proposed title and presentation format to graffp [at] denison.edu by Saturday, February 1st.
We encourage proposal submissions for a number of scholarly presentation formats. In accordance with AMS policies, please follow these guidelines:
1. Individual papers should be no longer than 20 minutes with 10 minutes of discussion.
2. “Lightning” sessions consist of individual 8-10 minute talks with additional discussion or media. Entire session will fill a one-hour slot.
3. Video presentation abstracts should include information on the goals and format of the presentation. Additional guidelines will be distributed with acceptance.
4. Seminar panels will distribute written papers ahead of the conference and include extended discussion of the topic. See AMS Seminar FAQ for additional information on proposing a topic and why to choose this format: https://www.amsmusicology.org/page/MinneapolisSeminarFAQ
5. Additional formats (workshops, roundtables, lecture-recitals) should fill an hour and 20-minute slot. Please identify session format, musicological significance, and participant roles in the abstract.
*Students are also eligible for the annual Deane L. Root Student Paper Award, sponsored by the Center for American Music in the University of Pittsburgh Library System. The Award consists of a $250 monetary prize and will be named at the end of the conference. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for this prize in the body of your email. The Chapter also offers limited support for travel and lodging to student presenters. Details can be found on the AMS Allegheny website.
All submissions will be evaluated by a blind peer-review process, and those from a committee member’s immediate colleagues or students will not be forwarded by the chair to that member.
For information on the chapter and upcoming events, see: https://amsallegheny.wordpress.com/

Re-Animating the Sound Archive
2025-03-05 18:00 (America/New_York) | Schaffel Recital Hall, Broyhill Music Center, Appalachian State University, 813 Rivers St., Boone, NC, 28608, United States
Over the past two decades, Brian Harnetty has located historical recordings that document spoken words and musical performance in archives across Appalachia and the Midwest, including the Berea Appalachian Sound Archives (Berea, Kentucky), the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Archive (Shawnee, Ohio), and the Thomas Merton Collection (Louisville, Kentucky). In this talk, Harnetty will discuss strategies by which people in the present relate to recorded sounds that document the past. Through listening with people who live today in the communities where the recordings were made, Harnetty has helped these communities understand and respond to their histories. In this talk he explores themes from several recording, performance, and installation projects that embed old audio in new contexts, playing illustrative examples from historic and present-day audio and video recordings. These projects document histories of extraction in Appalachia, social and environmental justice concerns, and contemplative practices.
This talk will be held in conjunction with Brian Harnetty’s residency as part of the Music Humanities Community Conversations Series at Appalachian State University. The Music Humanities Community Conversation Series provides a forum for students, faculty, and staff at Appalachian State University and community members to engage current topics in music humanities through invited talks and workshops given by scholars, artists, and cultural leaders from Appalachian State and the surrounding region.
Attendees may park in the Schaefer Lot, Broyhill Lot, or Peacock Lot for free from 5:00pm to the end of the event. The Broyhill Music Center is at 813 Rivers St, Boone, NC, 28608.
Click the button below to watch the livestream.
Livestream

“Vicariously Being There”: How The T.A.M.I. Show Invented the Concert Film
2025-03-13 19:00 (America/New_York) | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 1100 E 9th Street, Cleveland, OH, 44114, United States
Whether we’re watching Stop Making Sense for the 100th time, catching The Eras Tour in a packed movie theater, or tuning into Coachella live on YouTube, today we take for granted that we can see live concerts recorded for screens big and small. But in the 1960s, there was no set answer to the question of how to capture a concert on film, or what to even do with such a product once it’s been made.
In 1964, the concert film The T.A.M.I. Show gave young America a stunning answer, showcasing on large movie screens an eclectic medley of performers including the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, and an electrifying set by James Brown. The T.A.M.I. Show opened a path for more concert documentaries to be made and find their audiences, but it was also a unique moment in American popular music history. Join Landon Palmer as he uncovers the curious story of The T.A.M.I. Show, one that involves William Shakespeare, strange television technologies, and a very short-lived charity organization. In this talk, he’ll explain how this movie came to exist and why there’s never been anything quite like it since.
This event will be held as part of the AMS Many Musics of America Project and the AMS/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Lecture Series.

Science into Art: Discourses of Occult Vibration in Chicago’s Musical Culture
2025-03-14 16:30 (America/New_York) | Fulton Hall, University of Chicago, 5845 S Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL, 60637, United States
Join Professors Anna Gawboy and Christopher Scheer at the University of Chicago as they discuss the fascinating ways that esoteric philosophies influenced Chicago musicians.
Among the many varied offerings that comprised Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 were myriad scientific exhibitions, as well as the Parliament of World Religions, which brought together spiritual leaders representing a wide spectrum of beliefs. The Parliament included members of the Theosophical Society, an esoteric organization which sought to reconcile the growing divide between science and religion by treating both as corrupted branches of a universal ancient wisdom.
One concept which transcended these divisions at the time was vibration. At the exposition, vibration could be seen and experienced everywhere through the electric current that powered the geysers and illuminated the amusements of White City, as well as the novel inventions on display in the Electricity Building. At the same time, participating Theosophists advocated a conception of reality that was founded on the fundamental presence and manipulation of spiritual vibrations. In many cases, the language used to articulate scientific and spiritual meanings for vibration was shared, reflecting the Theosophists’ appropriation of scientific discourse and the deployment of Theosophy’s vibrational metaphysics in explanations of natural forces by scientists such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla.
This vocabulary of vibration was an important element in the musical culture of Chicago in the twentieth century and provides a framework to re-enchant its history. We will explore two overlapping but contrasting case studies: 1) the salon of Djane Lavoie Herz and the ultramodern musical experiments of her student, Ruth Crawford Seeger; and 2) the relationship of Alton Abraham’s Thmei Research group to the performances and music of Sun Ra. In both cases, the study of Theosophical texts and their discourses of vibration motivated musical experimentation, revealing esotericism’s potential to inspire creativity in networks of Chicago musicians, traversing divisions of style and genre, science and religion, and class and race.
This event will be held as part of the Many Musics of America Project.
Pre-Register

AMS Southwest Chapter Meeting
2025-03-15 | University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, United States
The Southwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society is pleased to announce a Spring 2025 Meeting, which will take place in person at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas, on Saturday, 15 March 2025. A related leadership summit that is open to all members of the chapter will take place on the afternoon Friday, March 14.
Student members of the AMS-SW chapter may submit their papers to the competition for the Hewitt-Oberdoerffer Award.
For more information, visit https://ams-sw.org/ or email AMS-SW Secretary Dr. Sarah Lucas at sarah.lucas -at- tamuk.edu.

AMS South-Central Chapter Meeting
2025-03-15 - 2025-03-16 | Belmont University, Nashville, TN, United States
The AMS South-Central Chapter is pleased to announce its Spring 2025 meeting at Belmont University in Nashville, TN.
Students from the AMS South-Central Chapter whose abstracts are selected by the program committee will be eligible to compete in the Rey M. Longyear Student Paper Competition.
Local Arrangements Chair: Peter Lamothe, peter.lamothe -at- belmont.edu
Register

AMS Midwest Chapter Meeting
2025-03-15 - 2025-03-16 | Illinois State University / Online
The Midwest Chapter officers are pleased to announce that the Spring 2025 meeting will be held online and in-person at Illinois State University on March 15-16th. Thorton Miller will be our host for the meeting.
Proposals for presentations, special sessions, panel discussions, and papers with a performance component are welcomed on any topic related to musicology. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should clearly indicate the scope of the research, methodology, and conclusions. Presentations will be limited to twenty minutes, with an additional ten minutes allotted for questions and discussion. Applications will include an option to indicate preference for online or in-person presentation formats. Speakers at the 2024 Fall meeting are not eligible to submit a paper abstract for the 2025 Spring meeting; however, they are welcome to participate in panel discussions. Only one submission per person is allowed.
Deadline for abstract submission: February 17, 2025
The meeting will feature a keynote presentation by Scott Schwartz (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) titled “Sousa and Baseball.”
Complete Guidelines for Paper Submission may be found at:
https://amsmidwest.weebly.com/abstract-submission.html
We have instituted an easy online submission process available at the chapter website:
https://amsmidwest.weebly.com/abstract-submission.html
You need to be a current regular or student member of the AMS-Midwest Chapter for your abstract to be considered (chapter membership is not the same as national membership in the AMS). To join or renew your membership, please visit our membership page:
https://amsmidwest.weebly.com/membership.html
Submission of an abstract denotes the speaker’s willingness and availability to attend the 2025 Spring Chapter meeting online.
We encourage both graduate and undergraduate students to present their work at our meetings. Student members of AMS-Midwest are invited to compete for one of two annual prizes for outstanding papers offered by Indiana University Press and A-R Editions, Inc. For updated details of the awards, see:
https://amsmidwest.weebly.com/awards.html
Thank you for your interest in the upcoming meeting of the AMS-Midwest Chapter. We hope to see you there!
Your AMS-Midwest Chapter Officers

AMS Rocky Mountain Chapter Meeting
2025-03-21 - 2025-03-22 | Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, United States
The Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Musicological Society is pleased to announce the call for papers for the Chapter’s Annual Meeting, this year hosted at Brigham Young University, March 2025. Current plans are for a fully in-person event. The Chapter will meet jointly with the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society for Music Theory.
Dates: Friday-Saturday, March 21-22, 2025
Location: Brigham Young University (Provo, UT)
Submission Deadline: 11:55pm MST, January 10, 2025
The chapter invites paper submissions on any topic related to musicology, broadly defined. Each presentation will be twenty minutes, plus ten-minute discussions.

Individual papers: Submit by email (single Word or PDF attachment): title and abstract (up to 250 words).
Sessions on a single topic: Submit by email (single sender): proposed session title, along with all abstracts for the session (individually titled Word or PDF attachments, up to 250 words per abstract).
Roundtable discussions: Submit by email (single Word or PDF attachment): session title and abstract (up to 450 words)

For all submissions, please do not include names or affiliations in Word/PDF attachments. Include in the email body only presenter name(s), along with institutional affiliation(s), if applicable. Papers will be chosen by the selection committee through a blind-review process. According to Chapter bylaws, papers submitted by undergraduate or master’s students must be accompanied by faculty letters of endorsement (not to be shared with the selection committee). A prize for best student paper will be announced at the conference’s end. If you would like to be considered for this prize, please indicate this additionally in the email body.
Additional information about conference format and registration will be posted at: https://arts.unco.edu/music/american-musicological-society-rocky-mountain/
Please email proposals or inquiries to Hannah McLaughlin: hannah_mclaughlin – at – byu.edu.

HipHop and US Diplomacy
2025-03-22 19:00 (America/New_York) | Maroon Culture Lab (Formerly the Pythian Theatre), Columbus, OH, United States
The AMS proudly partners with the HipHop Literacies Conference, Irrepressible Soul, The Ohio State University, and Urban Arts Space to present a special panel and performance featuring hip hop duo Mother Nature and dr. gloria j. wilson. Mother Nature is the women-led HipHop force of Klevah and TRUTH, who are emcees devoted to building a legacy founded on defiance and self-discovery. In addition to being award winning performers, they are both artist-educators who participated in Next Level residencies which mobilized HipHop as a tool of diplomacy in places like Morocco and Azerbaijan.
In this evening panel, dr. wilson will lead a discussion with Klevah and TRUTH about their experience with HipHop education and diplomacy in the US and abroad. Following the conversation, Mother Nature will give a brief performance.
This event is presented as part of the HipHop Literacies Conference, bringing together scholars, K–12 teachers, and artist-practitioners from a variety of fields who use HipHop in a variety of ways, from literacy instruction to political advocacy. It will take place at the Maroon Culture Lab, a new performance space in the historically Black neighborhood of Bronzeville in Columbus, Ohio. Originally built as a temple for the Knights of Pythias, the building is dedicated to promoting and honoring artistic and cultural contributions by Black artists, musicians, and other creative professionals.
Tickets are free, but registration will be required. For more information, visit the Many Musics of America website.

Happy Little Seahorses: Brahms’ Unwritten “Melusine” Opera
2025-03-26 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | James Madison Building – Mumford Room (LM649), 101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, DC, 20540, United States
In this AMS/Library of Congress Lecture, Laurie McManus of Shenandoah Conservatory gives a talk on a little-known opera libretto that was given to Johannes Brahms for consideration. While Johannes Brahms excelled in many musical arenas, he never managed to compose an opera, despite a lingering interest and much encouragement from his friends. The most encouraging and persistent of those friends was Hermann Levi, a Jewish conductor whose later advocacy for Richard Wagner has overshadowed his relationship with Brahms in the 1860s and early 70s. The Library of Congress holds extensive correspondence between Brahms and Levi, including a drafted opera libretto that Levi sent to Brahms in a letter from July 1871. The libretto was a joint effort between Levi and a local mutual friend, Anna Ettlinger, a published author and women’s rights advocate. The libretto might be called a “hidden gem” of the Library’s Brahms collection, given that it has never been transcribed or discussed in any substantial form in the Brahms literature—until now!
The event is free but tickets are required.
Tickets

AMS Greater New York Chapter / Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology Joint Annual Meeting
2025-04-04 - 2025-04-06 | New York University, 20 Cooper Square, Floor 3, New York, NY, 10003, United States
The joint meeting of the Greater New York Chapter of the AMS and the Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (MACSEM), will take place from April 4th through April 6th at AMS headquarters at New York University, 20 Cooper Square, Floor 3, New York, NY 10003. The location is accessible to the West 4th Street, West 8th Street, and Astor Place subway stations. Registration is required, but there is no fee to attend.
Please visit the AMS Greater New York Chapter’s website for the program and more details.

AMS Capital Chapter Meeting
2025-04-05 | Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States
For more information, visit https://www.ams-net.org/chapters/capital/upcoming-meeting-details/. The call for papers will be issued in early January.

2025 AMS/NYU Lecture
2025-04-10 19:00 (America/New_York) | Room 303, Education Building, New York University, 35 West 4th Street, New York, 10011
The 2025 AMS/NYU Lecture, “Razza, Race, and the Operatic Voice in Seventeenth-Century Italy,” will be held on Thursday, 10 April 2025 at 7:00pm in Room 303 at New York University’s Education Building, 35 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10011. Attendance is free, but registration is required.
In this lecture, Professor Emily Wilbourne draws on her recent award-winning book, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford, 2023).

AMS New England Chapter Meeting
2025-04-12 | Smith College, 7 College Lane, Northampton, MA, 01063, United States
The American Musicological Society, New England Chapter, announces its meeting of Spring 2025, to take place on April 12 hosted by Smith College. The Program Committee invites proposals of up to 300 words for 20-minute papers. In addition, the committee would also like to invite proposals for participation in a roundtable discussion that will focus on pedagogy and research during difficult times, connecting emotional, pedagogical, and political experiences to scholarly research and teaching. All abstracts are subject to anonymous review, and submissions from faculty, independent scholars, and students are encouraged and welcome.
Abstracts should be submitted by March 10 to the Program Committee through this Google form. Submitters will be informed of the committee’s decision by the end of March, with the hope of announcing the conference program by April 4.
Questions can be directed to the chapter email ams.newengland -at- gmail.com

Ibero-American Music Readings: A Discussion on Latest Publications
2025-04-25 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Online
During this event, we will delve into the exploration of musical modernism in Mexico in the long 20th century.
Our distinguished guests for this event are scholars Roberto Kolb-Neuhaus (UNAM), author of Silvestre Revueltas: Sounds of a Political Passion (Oxford University Press, 2023), and Ana Alonso-Minutti (University of New Mexico), author of Mario Lavista: Mirrors of Sounds (Oxford University Press, 2023). They will present their respective publications and engage in dialogue with our guest respondents, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez (Eastman School of Music) and Marcella Ernest (University of New Mexico). Finally, there will be a Q&A session open to all.
This event is free and open to all AMS members. Registration is required.

AMS Council Workshop
2025-05-08 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Online
A program of informational workshops, called Council Workshops, has been instituted to further educate Council members on AMS operations and to increase transparency. Members of the AMS Council are invited to attend these workshops to deepen their knowledge of the Society’s operations and prepare for higher office within the AMS. This AMS Council Workshop on AMS Governance will be held online on Thursday, 8 May 2025 at 3:00pm ET. By invitation only.

AMS New York State - St. Lawrence Chapter Meeting
2025-05-09 - 2025-05-10 | DC
The 2025 Annual Meeting of the New York State St. Lawrence Chapter of the American Musicological Society will take place on Friday and Saturday 9-10 May, 2025, in Ottawa (Canada), hosted by the School of Music of the University of Ottawa and chaired by Professors Lori Burns and Christopher Moore.
The chapter welcomes proposals for 20-minute presentations on all areas of scholarship in music, in addition to proposals for panels or alternate format sessions. The chapter also encourage proposals for a session of lightning talks consisting of five-minute research presentations on any topic (including work-in-progress).
Please visit the chapter website for more information and to find the link to the submission form: https://ams-nyssl.blogspot.com/2024/11/call-for-proposals-2025-annual-meeting.html
Submissions will be accepted until February 1, 2025. For questions about submissions, please contact Professor Lori Burns, University of Ottawa, at laburns -at- uOttawa.ca.

Careers Through Musicology: Beyond Teaching and Research
2025-06-17 12:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Online
“Careers Through Musicology: Beyond Teaching and Research” will be held online on 17 June 2025, 12:00–3:30pm ET. This AMS members-only event is organized by the AMS Committee on Career-Related Issues.
This event is intended to expose musicology PhD students and musicology PhDs to a variety of career paths and to provide practical guidance about how to seek employment outside traditional teaching positions. In addition to hearing how individuals have done this successfully, participants will gain practical, hands-on advice on seeking meaningful work outside traditional academic teaching jobs.
This event open to all AMS members. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

2025 Teaching Music History Conference
2025-06-20 - 2025-06-22 | New York University, 20 Cooper Square, Floor 3, New York, NY, 10003, United States
The Pedagogy Study Group of the American Musicological Society will host the 2025 Teaching Music History Conference at New York University in New York City on 20–22 June 2025. The conference will include a special workshop presented in conjunction with the Society’s Many Musics of America project, which will explore methods for teaching Asian American music history in the K-12 classroom.

2025 Kennedy Creek Old-Time Music Festival
2025-09-05 - 2025-09-06 | Kennedy Creek Resort, 3001 High Valley Road, Suches, GA, 30572, United States
The Kennedy Creek Old-Time Music Festival takes place every autumn at the Kennedy Creek Resort in Suches, Georgia. This year’s festival features workshops and a concert by the Yellow Daisies.
Participants are invited to reserve cabins, yurts, or campsites, and food is available at the resort restaurant. Guest artists teach workshops, lead competitions, and present concerts, but the main event is always jamming with friends. Admission is free.
More information and a schedule of events is available on the Many Musics of America website.

AMS Greater New York Chapter Meeting
2025-09-13 | CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
The next meeting of the Greater New York Chapter of the American Musicological Society will take place on Saturday, 13 September 2025 at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Please send proposals of 200-300 words to both jonathan.waxman “at” gmail.com and DrJSDailey “at” aol.com by 31 August 2025. Proposals on all musical subjects are accepted.

AMS Council Workshop: Mission
2025-09-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Online
A program of informational workshops, called Council Workshops, has been instituted to further educate Council members on AMS operations and to increase transparency. Members of the AMS Council are invited to attend these workshops to deepen their knowledge of the Society’s operations and prepare for higher office within the AMS. This AMS Council Workshop on AMS Mission will be held online on Wednesday, 24 September 2025 at 7:00pm ET. By invitation only.

The Golden Age of Latino Country: Ronstadt, Fender, and Rodriguez in the ’70s
2025-10-02 19:00 (America/New_York) | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 1100 E 9th Street, Cleveland, OH, 44114, United States
In 1972, a half-century after the birth of commercial country music, Billboard country charts posted the first hit single by a Latin artist, a young Tejano named Johnny Rodriguez. Over the next twenty-one months three Mexican American artists, Rodriguez, Freddy Fender, and Linda Ronstadt, racked up seventeen Top 10 hits, including ten at No. 1. These artists returned to the country charts throughout the ’70s and ’80s, with solo records and sometimes collaborations. But the half-century since 1975 has seen only one Latin solo artist top the country charts: Rick Trevino in 1996. Perhaps relatedly, recent research has identified an industry effort to build up country’s white image in the ’70s, even as the genre enjoyed a rise in Black and Hispanic listenership. This lecture revisits the music and machinations of country’s 1970s Latino prime and considers this moment in the context of the hundred-year history of Mexican American involvements and contributions in country music.
This event will be held as part of the AMS/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Lecture Series.

AMS Southeast Chapter Meeting
2025-10-04 | University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States
The Southeast Chapter of the American Musicological Society will hold its Fall 2025 meeting on Saturday, 4 October at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.

AMS Midwest Chapter Meeting
2025-10-11 - 2025-10-12 | Oakland University, Rochester, MI, United States
Deadline for abstract submission: August 22, 2025, by 11:59 PM EST
The Midwest Chapter officers are pleased to announce that the Fall 2025 meeting will be held in-person with an option for virtual presentation on Saturday and Sunday, October 11–12. David Kidger and Jessica Payette will be the hosts for the meeting. Please note that the virtual option is intended for those who live more than 150 miles from the conference location or have other extenuating circumstances that preclude attendance in person.
Proposals for presentations, special sessions, panel discussions, and papers with a performance component are welcomed on any topic related to musicology. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should clearly indicate the scope of the research, methodology, and conclusions. Presentations will be limited to twenty minutes, with an additional ten minutes allotted for questions and discussion. Speakers at the 2024 Fall meeting are not eligible to submit a paper abstract for the 2025 Fall meeting; however, they are welcome to participate in panel discussions. Only one submission per person is allowed.
In lieu of a keynote speaker, the meeting will feature a roundtable panel discussion, moderated by Chapter President Keith Clifton, titled “Search Committee Confidential.” This session will offer strategies and advice for effectively managing the current musicology job market with panelists representing a variety of institutions.
Complete Guidelines for Paper Submission and our easy online submission form may be found on the chapter’s Abstract Submission page.
After you submit an abstract, you will receive a confirmation that your proposal has been received. Blind copies of all proposals will be forwarded to the Program Committee.
You need to be a current regular or student member of the AMS-Midwest Chapter for your abstract to be considered (chapter membership is not the same as national membership in the AMS). To join or renew your membership, please visit the chapter’s membership page.
Submission of an abstract denotes the speaker’s willingness and availability to attend the 2025 Fall Chapter meeting.
We encourage both graduate and undergraduate students to present their work at our meetings. In addition to the abstract and other requested information, students submitting proposals must name and provide the email address for an advisor or other faculty member who can verify the student presenter’s readiness to present at a professional meeting. Student members of AMS-Midwest are invited to compete for one of two annual prizes for outstanding papers offered by Indiana University Press and A-R Editions, Inc. Students wishing to compete for the award are expected to submit their final text, including handouts and/or slides, as an email attachment to Dr. Megan Eagen-Jones, Chair of the Program Committee, at eagen -at- illinois.edu, by September 26, 2025, 11:59 PM EST. For updated details of the awards, see the chapter’s Awards page.
Your AMS-Midwest Chapter Officers:
Keith Clifton, President
amsmidwestpresident -at- gmail.com
Sophie Benn, Secretary
ams.midwest.secretary -at- gmail.com
Jessica Payette, Treasurer
ams.midwest.treasurer -at- gmail.com

Music, Disputes, and the Silent Western: The Yaqui (1916)
2026-09-22 19:00 (America/New_York) | Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Embracing the visual arts, literature, and music, interest in the West peaked in the early twentieth century. The emerging film industry capitalized on this enthusiasm, and the genre became popular with audiences and lucrative for the studios. Like most silent films, Westerns were accompanied by live musicians who used suggested musical programs to advise them what to play and when to play it during the film. These were often created by professional music directors, such as Ernst Luz (1878-1937), who managed the orchestras at Loew’s movie theaters, or proficient musicians, like Max Winkler (1888-1965), who worked at Carl Fischer Music Publishing and later established his own music publishing firm. This presentation examines two differing musical accompaniments created by Luz and Winkler for The Yaqui—an early Mexican-border prestige Western, the narrative of which is based on the enslavement of the Yaqui by the Mexican government—and the ensuing public debate about their appropriateness. Musical accompaniments for the silent Western, like these by Winkler and Luz, helped shape audiences’ perceptions of the West. This research offers the first critical examination of this music, illuminating its significance in fortifying the mythical substance and interpreting the imagined realism of the Western film.
This event will be held as part of the AMS/Library of Congress Lecture Series. Tickets are free but required.

Music Leadership Forum: Navigating Crisis and Change
2025-11-05 | Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN, 55403, United States
In 2025, the American Musicological Society (AMS) will hold its first-ever Music Leadership Forum. This day-long event titled, “Navigating Crisis and Change,” will gather leaders in music studies, the performing arts, education, and nonprofit management to share, learn, and connect. Featuring workshops hosted by an impressive roster of experts, the Music Leadership Forum will offer opportunities for professional development and networking for attendees working on music programs within a variety of professional contexts.
At the Forum, you will connect with colleagues who are shaping the future of music education and performance and learn how to approach strategic planning, professional ethics, staff management, and partnership-building in uncertain times. The Music Leadership Forum will offer ways to:

Motivate your team in the face of heightened stress and uncertainty
Market and promote your programs to new audiences
Assess the state of a rapidly changing industry or field
Engage with local partners and strengthen community connections
Evaluate shifting legal landscapes
Raise money in a scarce funding environment

For more information, visit: https://www.amsmusicology.org/events/music-leadership-forum/

2025 AMS-SMT Joint Annual Meeting
2025-11-06 - 2025-11-09 | Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN, 55403, United States
In 2025 the American Musicological Society (AMS) and Society for Music Theory (SMT) will hold their annual meetings jointly on 6–9 November 2025 at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. Join us for this exciting scholarly event which will feature hundreds of papers, workshops, roundtables, lectures and performances. Don’t miss out. Save the date!

Contemporary Issues in Music & Copyright Law
2025-11-07 | Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN, 55403, United States
On 7 November 2025, the American Musicological Society and the Sports, Art & Entertainment Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association are co-hosting a day of CLE sessions as part of the AMS’s 91st Annual Meeting on 6–9 November 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. The conference-style event includes a special day of CLE sessions focused on the intersection of music and law, including topics such as copyright infringement litigation and related musicological analysis as well as law and policy issues raised by artificial intelligence, music privacy, and more. Speakers include experienced music and entertainment attorneys and forensic musicologists. CLE credit approval is pending. Registration is required.
Co-Presented with the Sports, Art & Entertainment Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association.

Taken in Stride: The Mundanity of Ambulation
2025-11-07 19:30 (America/Chicago) | Music Box Theatre, 1407 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN, 55407, United States
The American Musicological Society is proud to present an unforgettable performance and lecture by musicologist and music creator Kwami Coleman.
This lecture/performance focuses on stride piano technique, where a pianist’s left hand maintains the rhythmic pulse of a song with alternating leaps between the instrument’s lower and middle registers, simulating the dialogic and propulsive exchange within a band’s rhythm section.
“Taken In Stride” is Kwami Coleman’s dialog with a more acoustic past and the thoroughly electronic and more automated present, and this dialog will extend to attendees who, in their presence and participation, will join in, in stride—in rhythmic and registral exchange.
This event will be held as part of the American Musicological Society’s Many Musics of America Project and in conjunction with the 2025 AMS-SMT Joint Annual Meeting. Registration is required.

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