CfP: MedRen 2027 (KU Leuven, Belgium), 5–9 July 2027 (deadline 17 January 2027) Call for Papers Meetings & Events

The Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference comes to KU Leuven, Belgium, on 5–9 July 2027.

Submission deadline: Sunday, 17 January 2027
Notification of acceptance: Monday, 8 March 2027

Organised by David J. Burn, Antonio Chemotti, and Bart Demuyt, in collaboration with the Department of Musicology at KU Leuven, the Alamire Foundation, and the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR).

MedRen welcomes proposals on a wide range of topics relating to medieval and Renaissance music. For the 2027 edition, we would also like to particularly encourage submissions engaging with a number of themes connected to the research interests and activities of the organising partners. These themes include:

• Music for the dead — music, death, mourning, and commemoration
• Chansons and chansonniers — repertories, sources, transmission, performance, and reception
• Musical life in the Low Countries in a global context — musical practices, communities, networks, and the circulation of musicians, repertories, and ideas
• Technological approaches to music and music sources — digitisation, databases, digital editions, virtual acoustics, computational methods, and other technological approaches to the study, documentation, preservation, and interpretation of music and musical sources
• Music sources at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) — manuscripts, prints, provenance studies, and new approaches to the study of musical sources
• Museums, collections, and the curatorship of musical heritage — the collecting, preservation, display, and mediation of musical objects and heritage, as well as curatorial practices and new approaches to presenting music and its histories to diverse audiences

These themes are intended as points of departure rather than exclusive categories, and proposals on other topics relating to medieval and Renaissance music are equally welcome.

Proposals may be submitted in the following formats:

• Posters (abstract of maximum 250 words)
• Individual papers of 20 minutes, followed by up to 10 minutes of discussion and questions (abstract of maximum 250 words)
• Paired papers of 60 minutes in total, including discussion and questions (overall abstract of maximum 200 words; individual abstracts maximum 150 words each)
• Themed sessions of 90 minutes (overall abstract of maximum 200 words; individual abstract of maximum 150 words each; please also provide the name of the chair)
• Roundtables of 90 minutes (abstract of maximum 250 words)
• Lecture-recitals of 30 or 60 minutes (abstract of maximum 250 words)
• Please submit your abstract at www.conftool.org/medren2027/. The submission platform opens on Monday, 26 October 2026.

If you have any further questions, please contact the organisers at info-medren2027@kuleuven.be. Questions regarding the abstract submission process, as well as the registration tools, should be sent to the Conference Office at medren2027@kuleuven.be.

The conference will take place on the premises of KU Leuven’s Faculty of Arts: Blijde Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. https://maps.app.goo.gl/kdYizW2vuYVawKePA.