News

Call For Papers

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

Convened by Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale International Center, New York, and RILM Europe, Frankfurt am Main, and the Higher Institute of Music of Tunis, Université de Tunis, Tunisia 

Local Organizing/Arrangements Committee:

• Higher Institute of Music of Tunis (ISMT), Université de Tunis, Tunisia
• 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 | Higher Institute of Music of Tunis, University of Tunis| 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 

Scientific Committee Coordination:

• Tina Frühauf, Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, CUNY Graduate Center, USA
• Alla El Kahla, Independent Scholar, Germany / Tunisia
• Iyadh El Kahla, Universität Hildesheim, Germany / Université d’Aix-Marseille, France

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.

RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines (RAPMM) Product Coordinator Lindsey Eckenroth will be in attendance at the conference of the U.S. branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Washington, D.C., 26 February–1 March 2026. The event takes the theme of Popular Music and the State.

On Saturday, 28 February, 8:30–9:00am local time, Lindsey will present a paper titled “The Carter Family’s ‘Single girl, married girl’: Tracing interpretive tensions through the lens of social reproduction theory” as part of the Conservatism panel. Her research presents this 1928 hillbilly hit through the lens of the Carters’ family-oriented, conservative, self-described “morally good” public image; the values and gender norms associated with country music; and discourses surrounding motherhood, reproductive choice, and feminism in the U.S. during the early 20th century. 

Lindsey will also be around for the duration of the conference, so please feel free to catch her to ask questions, provide feedback, pick up some free materials about RAPMM, or just say hello.

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

RILM will participate in the 95th annual meeting of the Music Library Association (MLA), held in Salt Lake City, 25-28 February 2026.

Conference attendees are cordially invited to a luncheon celebrating the start of RILM’s 60th anniversary during the MLA Annual Meeting. The luncheon will take place on Friday, 27 February 2026, 12:00–1:00 pm MST at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center.  

Executive Director Tina Frühauf will open with a State of RILM and reflections on the organization’s direction moving forward, followed by Elizabeth Martin-Ruiz, who will share updates on recent and forthcoming product developments. Ian McGorray will close with a look at RILM’s 60-year history.

Please RSVP by Friday, 20 February 2026 to reserve your lunch and a seat by emailing conferences@rilm.org with your name, institution, and “MLA 2026” in the subject line. 

In addition to the luncheon, Ian, Liz, and Tina will be available throughout the conference to discuss RILM products and gather feedback. We invite you to visit the RILM booth, schedule an appointment via subscriptions@rilm.org, or—if attending virtually—arrange a one-on-one Zoom consultation after the MLA has concluded. 

And to learn more about the event, head to the conference website, or peruse the program. 

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Three titles have just been added to RILM Music Encyclopedias, further enriching its collection of reference works from around the globe:

• Walter Brunetto, Piccolo vocabolario etnomusicologico: Forme, stili, repertori e contesti della musica di tradizione orale italiana (Rome: Squilibri, 2012) 253 p. — In Italian.
• Frank Daykin, Encyclopedia of French art song: Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2013) vi, 739 p. — In English.
• Igor de Gandarias, Diccionario de la música en Guatemala (rev. ed.; Ciudad de Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 2024) xv, 193 p. — In Spanish.

These newly available texts exemplify RILM Music Encyclopedias’ commitment to comprehensive, international, and subject-specific coverage. 

The Piccolo vocabolario etnomusicologico offers a coherent, structured, and systematic lexicon devoted to the study of Italian traditional music. Connecting performance practice with rigorous scholarly research, the Encyclopedia of French art song offers an in-depth exploration of individual mélodies by Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc. The Diccionario de la música en Guatemala is the first reference work devoted exclusively to Guatemala’s musical traditions, encompassing Indigenous, colonial, and contemporary influences.

Together, these additions underscore the role of RILM Music Encyclopedias in preserving, contextualizing, and advancing global perspectives on musical traditions and historiography.

RILM Music Encyclopedias is available via EBSCOhost and on RILM’s platform, Egret, at rme.rilm.org.

RILM will be in attendance at the Forging an American Musical Identity (FAMI) conference in New York, NY, 28–30 January 2026.

Hosted by The Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation’s project Music in Gotham: The New York Scene 1862–1875, the conference and related events are held across iconic NYC performance and research venues, such as The Graduate Center (CUNY), the NYPL for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall. The three-day event explores a broad spectrum of repertories through scholarly discussion and live performances, featuring music not heard for over a century. Together, these activities invite reflection on how music shaped 19th-century American culture and how it continues to inform our understanding of American identity today. 

RILM staff can be found at the RILM exhibition table in front of The Graduate Center’s Elebash Recital Hall and Segal Hall on 29 and 30 January, respectively.

Stop by to learn more about all of RILM’s resources. And for more details on this event, please visit the conference website on which you’ll find the conference program.