RILM News

RILM will participate in the seventh congress of the Regional Association for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Musicological Society (ARLAC/IMS), which will take place at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 10–14 August 2026.

On Thursday, 13 August, at 4:00pm local/3:00pm EDT, Executive Director Tina Frühauf, Executive Editor Zdravko Blažeković, and Supervising Editor James Melo will host the plenary session RILM at 60. Zdravko opens the panel with an examination of the six-decade relationship between RILM and the IMS. This is followed by James, who will survey RILM’s resources and their significance for Latin America and the Caribbean. Finally, Tina, who will chair the session, concludes with a forward-looking perspective on RILM’s evolving mission, exploring how scholars engage with its expanding databases and what can be learned from RILM’s cooperative model as musicological literature continues to grow.

Please feel free to find us to ask questions, provide feedback, or just say hello. You can find more details about this event on the conference website.

In celebration of the 60th anniversary of Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), we proudly present a short documentary film. Narrated by Executive Director Tina Frühauf and Executive Editor Zdravko Blažeković, and featuring several current and former RILM staff members, it explores RILM’s history, mission, and evolving role in music scholarship and cultural preservation.

As the film recounts RILM’s evolution from an ambitious vision to an international organization that occupies a unique place within the humanities, it explores ideas that have shaped RILM over six decades: a commitment to documenting the world’s musical and scholarly traditions in all their diversity, and an eagerness to embrace technological innovation, from the computer to generative artificial intelligence. Recent developments, including RILM’s recognition as a UNESCO-accredited NGO, also suggest directions for the organization’s future. 

RILM serves a global music research community through an expansive range of bibliographic resources. This film offers a glimpse of the people and ideas that lie behind this endeavor. We hope you enjoy it.

RILM will participate, for the first time, in the world conference of the International Society for Music Education (ISME), which will take place in the Palais des congrès de Montréal, Montréal, Canada, 26–31 July 2026. 

On Monday, 27 July, at 2:50pm local time, Editorial Director Designate Ralph Whyte will lead a workshop entitled “Research techniques workshop: Critical bibliography skills”. Ralph will also give a paper presentation, “Bibliodiversity in higher music education: Exploring the possibilities of multilingual readings”, on Wednesday, 29 July, at 11:50am local time. 

Ralph and Executive Director Tina Frühauf will be in attendance throughout the conference. Please feel free to find us to ask questions, provide feedback, or just say hello. You can find more details about this event on the conference website.

The RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines (RAPMM) just added 12 publications to its collection. The new titles are:

• La línea del arco. León: Luis Calvo, 1991–92.
• Mojo navigator. San Francisco: Mojo Publishing Company, 1966–67.
• Muchacha fanzine. San Antonio: Daisy Salinas,  2011–.
• Muchacha mini. San Antonio: Daisy Salinas,  2011–.
• New York rocker. New York: Alan Betrock/Andy Schwartz, 1976–84.
• Progression: The quarterly journal of progressive music. Lowell: John Collinge, 1992–2018.
• Rejoice!. Oxford: University of Mississippi, 1987–94.
• SCAM. Fort Lauderdale/Miami/San Francisco/Brooklyn: Iggy Scam, 1991–2016.
• Sea of tranquility. Louisville: Images and Words, Inc., 2000–01.
• 实验先锋 [Shiyan xianfeng/China avant-garde music fanzine]. Xi county: Xi Productions, 2011–15.
• Spiral. Madrid: Revista Spiral, 1993–96. ISSN 1134-0878
• Women in rock. Cincinnati: Izzy Krombholz, 2016–20.

These newly added titles reflect RILM’s international scope and mission of cultural preservation. With publications in Chinese, English, and Spanish, they document progressive rock, punk, avant-garde music and more across three continents, offering a global perspective on popular music scenes and artists of the last 60 years.  

RAPMM now comprises more than 135 independently published popular music magazines and fanzines dating from the late 1960s to the present day. This continually expanding collection of digitized and fully searchable publications serves as a valuable resource for multidisciplinary research into the history of global popular music and its relation to politics and society, underground scenes, stylistic shifts, feminism, iconography, and more.

RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines is available on RILM’s platform, Egret, at rapmm.rilm.org

RILM Abstracts with Full Text just added 11 more titles to its full-text journal collection. The new titles are:

• Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2002–. ISSN 2616-8979
• Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955–. ISSN 0075-2681
• Journal of music theory and transcultural music studies. Isparta: Genç Bilge Yayıncılık, 2023–. ISSN 3023-7335
• Liszt journal: Jahrbuch der Liszt Akademie Raiding. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2024–. ISSN 3061-0451
• Lucrări de muzicologie/Musicology papers. Cluj-Napoca: Conservatorul de Muzică G. Dima, 2009–. ISSN 1222-894X/2068-8601 and eISSN 1222-894X/2285-0031
• Meshk journal of religious music. Istanbul: Istanbul University Press/İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2024–. eISSN 3062-0430
• Music cognition. Cluj-Napoca: MediaMusica, 2017–. ISSN 2601-3193 and eISSN 2601-3207
• Newsletter of the Dvořák Society for Czech and Slovak Music. Newcastle-under-Lyme: Dvořák Society for Czech and Slovak Music, 1988–. ISSN 0000-0000
• Notes: Quarterly journal of the Music Library Association. Middleton: Music Library Association, 1934–. ISSN 0027-4380 and eISSN 1534-150X
• 音楽教育学 [Ongaku kyōikugaku]. Koganei: Nihon Ongaku Kyōiku Gakkai/The Japan Music Education Society, 1971–. ISSN 0289-6907
• Senfl-Studien. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2012–18. ISSN 2716-2534  

These new additions reflect RILM’s multidisciplinary, multilingual, and multinational scope. From Western art music and religious practices to psychological perspectives, theoretical approaches, pedagogy, and librarianship, they speak to a broad and diverse research community.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text also deepens its already formidable collection of exclusive content: The Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte; Liszt journal: Jahrbuch der Liszt Akademie Raiding; Senfl-Studien; and 音楽教育学 [Ongaku kyōikugaku] are now available in digital format for the first time—and only through RAFT.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature features citations, abstracts, and indexing for more than 1.8 million publications from the early 19th century to the present, covering  traditional music, popular music, jazz, classical music, and related subjects. With cover-to-cover access to over 300 periodicals, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text builds on its standing as the most comprehensive international bibliography of writings on music. 

If you do not already subscribe to RILM Abstracts with Full Text, get in touch with your EBSCO sales representative, or email information@ebsco.com.

RILM will participate at the annual Congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML) in Thessaloniki, Greece, 28 June–3 July 2026.

On Thursday, 2 July 2026, at 11:00am EEST/4:00am EDT, Tina Frühauf, RILM’s Executive Director, will chair the RILM general information session RILM at Sixty. Tina will be joined by Executive Editor and RILM Abstracts and DEUMM Product Coordinator Zdravko Blažeković, and Senior Editor and RAFT Product Coordinator Jadranka Važanová, as speakers on the panel. Tina’s presentation “RILM: A vision for the future” will be followed by Jadranka’s review of “RILM in 2026” and Zdravko’s talk about “RILM and IAML: 60 years of friendship”. 

RILM’s Commission Mixte will convene on Friday, 3 July, at 11:00am local time.

Also on Friday, 3 July, at 11:00am local time, the panel Contextualizing Modern Global Music Encyclopedia: DEUMM Online will gather authors of new entries in the encyclopedia to speak about the musical life and culture of Greece, followed by an open discussion about the coverage of information in modern lexicographic work.

Our annual Working Meeting for RILM Committee Members and Collaborators will be held on Wednesday, 1 July, at 11:00am local time. On the same evening at 8pm RILM will host a reception celebrating its 60th anniversary. Please RSVP by Wednesday, 10 June 2026 by emailing conferences@rilm.org with your name, institution, and “IAML 2026” in the subject line. 

Please feel free to find any of us to ask questions, provide feedback, or just say hello. Learn more about the event and the program on the conference website.

Call For Papers

1. Tunis Leg: 31 March–2 April 2027 (no registration fee)

Convened by Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale 

Local Organizing/Arrangements Committee:

• Iyadh El Kahla, Universität Hildesheim, Germany / Université d’Aix-Marseille, France

2. Kenya Leg: Kabarak University, Kenya: 11–13 October 2027 (registration fee: USD150), Convened by the African Musicological Institute and Kabarak University

Local Organizing/Arrangements Committee:

• African Musicology Institute, Kabarak University
• Directorate of Research, Innovation and Outreach, Kabarak University 

Conference Overview

This pan-African conference seeks to create a sustained, transformative dialogue on the histories, practices, and futures of music studies centered on Africa and its global diaspora. Building on the success of transnational collaborations, we aim to bridge geographical and epistemological divides by staging linked gatherings in Tunis and Nakuru, Kenya.

We invite scholars and educators from all disciplines to engage with the complex tapestry of music studies in and about Africa and the African Diaspora. The conference will critically examine established narratives, elevate emergent methodologies, and foster networks for collaborative research that looks both to the past and the future of African music studies.

We welcome proposals for individual papers (20 minutes, followed by 25 minutes discussion), organized panels (3–4 papers), and roundtables that address, but are not limited to, the following subtopics:

I. Revisiting the Past: Historiography, Archives, and Recovery

• The history of African music studies and its key figures
• Oral histories, griot traditions, and Indigenous knowledge systems
• Pre-colonial and early colonial approaches
• Archival sources: silences, presences, and ethics
• Decolonizing music histories and canon formation
• Recovering lost or marginalized figures, traditions, and trajectories

II. Navigating the Present: Practice, Theory, and Circulation

• Institutionalization: African music studies in universities, archives, and cultural organizations
• Contemporary methodologies across the continent and diaspora
• Studying popular music in the digital age
• Ethnography in the 21st century: positionality, collaboration, and reciprocity
• Critical theorizations from African and Black diasporic perspectives
• Music studies in the face of migration, conflict, and environmental change
• The politics of global circulation

III. Disciplining the Future: Innovation, Pedagogy, and Sustainability

• Towards African music studies as a discipline
• New technologies in creation, preservation, and analysis
• The future of music education: curricula, institutions, and community practices
• Cultural sustainability, heritage safeguarding, and UNESCO frameworks
• Interdisciplinary and transcontinental research models

IV. Dialogues Across Waters: Diaspora, Return, and Transnationalism

• African music studies in the Americas, Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and beyond
• African music studies: Heritage, innovation, and contemporary transformations
• Future perspectives on African music studies
• The role of music studies in diplomatic and soft power initiatives
• Digital diasporas and virtual communities

The conference languages are English and French.

Kindly submit proposals via this form: https://tinyurl.com/57v7vx57

Deadline for submissions: 1 September 2026; notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 December 2026.

Logistics:
Participants are expected to attend and present at one leg of the conference. While we are actively seeking funding, participants should also explore institutional support for travel and accommodation. We intend to publish selected papers. Further details regarding registration, visas, and local logistics will follow upon acceptance.

Organizing Committee:
RILM International Center & RILM Europe | African Musicological Institute | Kabarak University | 

Scientific Committee:

• Daniel Avorgbedor, University of Ghana, Ghana 
• Emna Beltaïef, Université de Tunis, Tunisia
• Antonio C. Cuyler, University of Michigan, USA
• Wilhelm Delport, University of Cape Town, South Africa
• Luise Fischer, Universität Leipzig and The Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany 
• Abdelhamid Hénia, Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts Beit al Hikma, Tunisia
• Rémy Jadinon, Royal Museum for Central Africa and Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Rim Djemal, Université de Tunis, Tunisia
• Philip Nyawere, Kabarak University, Kenya
• Magdalena Pycińska, Jagiellonian University, Poland
• Mellitus N. Wanyama, Kabarak University, Kenya 

For inquiries, contact conferences@rilm.org.

And head to the conference website for more.

This conference is organized under the framework of RILM’s commitment, as a UNESCO-accredited NGO, to the international and equitable dissemination of music scholarship

This summer, RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines (RAPMM) will add 12 publications to its collection. The new titles are:

• La línea del arco. León: Luis Calvo, 1991–92.
• Mojo navigator. San Francisco: Mojo Publishing Company, 1966–67.
• Muchacha fanzine. San Antonio: Daisy Salinas,  2011–.
• Muchacha mini. San Antonio: Daisy Salinas,  2011–.
• New York rocker. New York: Alan Betrock/Andy Schwartz, 1976–84.
• Progression: The quarterly journal of progressive music. Lowell: John Collinge, 1992–2018.
• Rejoice!. Oxford: University of Mississippi, 1987–94.
• SCAM. Fort Lauderdale/Miami/San Francisco/Brooklyn: Iggy Scam, 1991–2016.
• Sea of tranquility. Louisville: Images and Words, Inc., 2000–01.
• 实验先锋 [Shiyan xianfeng/China avant-garde music fanzine]. Xi county: Xi Productions, 2011–15.
• Spiral. Madrid: Revista Spiral, 1993–96. ISSN 1134-0878
• Women in rock. Cincinnati: Izzy Krombholz, 2016–20.

These new additions span magazines and zines in Chinese, English, and Spanish and document progressive rock, punk, avant-garde music and more across three continents. Together, these rare publications offer an international perspective on popular music scenes and artists of the last 60 years.    

RAPMM now comprises more than 135 independently published popular music magazines and fanzines dating from the late 1960s to the present day. This continually expanding collection of digitized and fully searchable publications serves as a valuable resource for multidisciplinary research into the history of global popular music and its relation to politics and society, underground scenes, stylistic shifts, feminism, iconography, and more.

RILM will participate, for the first time, in the 54th annual meeting of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) held in Montréal, 3–5 May 2026. This year’s conference theme is Résistance.

On Tuesday, 5 May, Liz Martin-Ruiz and Jackie Santos will present papers in the panel A Culture of Resistance: Libraries, Archives, and the Impact of Culture on Collecting (and Collecting on Culture). At 3:15pm local time, Liz will give her talk “Building a global digital archive for popular music and culture zines”, which dissects the creation process of RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines (RAPMM). Jackie Santos will follow directly after at 3:30pm with her presentation “Punk rock & resistance: Documenting decades of defiance in an international zine archive”, which examines themes within RAPMM. 

Liz and Jackie will be available throughout the conference to discuss RILM products and gather feedback. Take a moment to visit them at the RILM booth, schedule an appointment via subscriptions@rilm.org, or—if attending virtually—arrange a one-on-one Zoom consultation after ARLIS/NA has concluded. 

For more details on this event, please visit the conference website on which you’ll find the conference program.

This summer, RILM Abstracts with Full Text will add eleven more titles to its full-text journal collection. The new titles are:

• Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2002–. ISSN 2616-8979
• Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955–. ISSN 0075-2681
• Journal of music theory and transcultural music studies. Isparta: Genç Bilge Yayıncılık, 2023–. ISSN 3023-7335
• Liszt journal: Jahrbuch der Liszt Akademie Raiding. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2024–. ISSN 3061-0451
• Lucrări de muzicologie/Musicology papers. Cluj-Napoca: Conservatorul de Muzică G. Dima, 2009–. ISSN 1222-894X/2068-8601 and eISSN 1222-894X/2285-0031
• Meshk journal of religious music. Istanbul: Istanbul University Press/İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayinlari, 2024–. eISSN 3062-0430
• Music cognition. Cluj-Napoca: MediaMusica, 2017–. ISSN 2601-3193 and eISSN 2601-3207
• Newsletter of the Dvořák Society for Czech and Slovak Music. Newcastle-under-Lyme: Dvořák Society for Czech and Slovak Music, 1988–. ISSN 0000-0000
• Notes: Quarterly journal of the Music Library Association. Middleton: Music Library Association, 1934–. ISSN 0027-4380 and eISSN 1534-150X
• 音楽教育学 [Ongaku kyōikugaku]. Koganei: Nihon Ongaku Kyōiku Gakkai/The Japan Music Education Society, 1971–. ISSN 0289-6907
• Senfl-Studien. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2012–18. ISSN 2716-2534  

These new additions reflect RILM’s multidisciplinary, multilingual, and multinational scope. Covering Western art music, religious practices, psychological perspectives, theoretical approaches, pedagogy, librarianship, and more, their contents will appeal to the interest of a wide range of researchers. 

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text also extends its formidable collection of exclusive content, making the Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte; Liszt journal: Jahrbuch der Liszt Akademie Raiding; Senfl-Studien; and 音楽教育学 [Ongaku kyōikugaku] available in a digital format for the first time.

With cover-to-cover access to over 300 periodicals, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text enhances the comprehensive, international bibliography of writings on music, featuring citations, abstracts, and indexes. It covers over 1.7 million publications from the early 19th century to the present on traditional music, popular music, jazz, classical music, and related subjects, providing a complete research experience.

If you do not already subscribe to RILM Abstracts with Full Text, get in touch with your EBSCO sales representative, or email information@ebsco.com.