CfP: 10th Biennial Yale Graduate Music Symposium Call for Papers Meetings & Events

10th Biennial Yale Graduate Music Symposium
February 6–7, 2026
Stoeckel Hall, Yale University

Call for Papers

The Yale Department of Music invites submissions for the 2026 Yale Graduate Music Symposium.

This year’s symposium will reflect on our theme of “Music on (the) Edge.” How does music invite or appease feelings of being on the edge? How does music construct an “edge”? Does it construct or just enforce an edge? What is “edgy music” and how does it prescribe and reinscribe social relations? How might some forms of music notation play with what one might consider a periphery? How do theoretical constructions such as genre, form, and meter describe, create, or enforce boundaries in music? How does music engage with being on the edge of (innovation, political tensions, social dynamics, borders, etc.)?

We look forward to seeing how such questions and new ones are challenged and expanded through proposals for a wide range of papers, lecture-recitals, sound art installations, and other kinds of thoughtful work on music and sound.

The Yale Graduate Music Symposium (YGMS) is a biennial event hosted by the Yale Department of Music that provides an opportunity for graduate students engaged in various fields of sonic research to participate in an intensive exchange of ideas. The organizing committee of the tenth YGMS is pleased to welcome submissions from those in music studies as well as outside of music studies proper, including but not limited to English, Black Studies, Film and Media Studies, American Studies, Religious Studies, Medieval Studies, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Ethnicity Race and Migration Studies, and History of Art.

Abstracts should be no more than 300 words and should be formatted to the submission guidelines available on our website. Submissions are due by 11:59pm EST on November 14, 2025. Please see our website for more information: https://campuspress.yale.edu/ygms/call-for-papers/.

Keynote: Professor Kofi Agawu, CUNY
Workshop: Yale Department of Music Faculty
Contact | ygmsconf@gmail.com | https://campuspress.yale.edu/ygms/

Submission Guidelines
All proposals must be submitted electronically by Friday, 14 November, 2025, at 11:59 pm EST to our email address: ygmsconf@gmail.com.

Proposals must include the following components:

1. An email sent to ygmsconf@gmail.com containing:

• “YGMS Submission” as the subject field
• The author’s name, contact information, and academic affiliation
• A list of any audio-visual requirements
• The PDF file (see #2) as an attachment

2. A PDF file, containing only:

• The paper or project’s title
• The proposed format of the presentation (see below)
• An abstract of no more than 300 words
• Where appropriate, links to relevant sound recordings, scores, or other supplementary materials

The PDF should contain no identifying information. The proposals will be reviewed anonymously to ensure fairness in the acceptance process.

Formats for presentation include:

• 20-minute papers or audiovisual presentations with 10 minutes for discussion
• 30-minute composers’ colloquia, performances, or lecture-recitals, with 15 minutes for discussion
• Sound-art installations or other long-form presentations.

Queries regarding submissions should be directed to Alexandra Dreher at: ygmsconf@gmail.com.