CfP: “Musica Mercata: Finance, Commodity and the Music Industry from Antiquity to the Present” (Helsinki; Deadline 30.09.23)

Call for papers: “Musica Mercata: Finance, Commodity and the Music Industry from Antiquity to the Present”
Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2023

7th Sibelius Academy Symposium on Music History
Time and place: 5–7 June 2024, University of the Arts Helsinki, Helsinki Music Centre Organisers: University of the Arts Helsinki History Forum and Sibelius Academy

The 7th Sibelius Academy Symposium on Music History provides the opportunity for music-history scholars all over the world to interrogate issues around finance, commodity and the music industry in the history of music from antiquity to the present and in all parts of the globe.

The financial condition of music has been recognised for as long as there have been studies of patronage in the music of the early-modern period or for as long as ‘opera’ has been regarded as both ‘an art and a business’. And while the domains of music publishing and the press have long been regarded as financially contingent, the 7th Sibelius Academy Symposium on Music History seeks to expand these concerns to include all types of agency related to music, commodity and finance across the globe, and all types of exchange: monetary, in-kind and reciprocal gifting.

The following (non-exhaustive) list opens up some questions that the symposium looks to explore:

  • Cultural history of music and economy

  • Musical celebrity

  • Patronage and music

  • Promotion and self-promotion of musicians

  • Music publishing, engraving and other forms of dissemination

  • Music institutions and their financial underpinnings

  • Economic impact on the aesthetics of music

  • Music as commodity

  • Media and music

  • Connections of the music market to other economic networks

  • Musical societies

  • Music collecting

  • The trade in music autographs and related material

  • The concept of the music industry

Keynote speakers of the symposium are:

Kyle Barnett (Bellarmine University, US)

Gundula Kreuzer (Yale University, US)

Proposals are invited for

  • Papers (20 minutes duration followed by 10 minutes discussion)

  • Complete sessions and panels (two, three or four 20-minute papers, each with 10 minutes

    discussion)

  • Panels with a freer structure (position-papers, lightning papers, responses, etc.)

Proposal length:

  • individual presentation proposals: max 300 words

  • panel session proposals: max 350 words + each panelist’s proposal 200 words

The language of the conference is English.

The deadline for submissions is Saturday 30 September 2023 (23:59 Finnish time UTC+3).
Proposals can be sent online: Musica Mercata 2024
Notices of acceptance will be sent by Tuesday 31 October 2023.

While it is intended that the conference will be an in-person event, the organisers will be also pleased to consider hybrid or online submissions.

Contact for inquiries (no proposal submissions): musicamercata2024@uniarts.fi. For more information, please see the event website: Musica Mercata 2024

The organizing committee

Anne Kauppala (committee chair) / Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki
Mark Everist / University of Southampton, GB
Ingeborg Zechner / University of Graz, AT
Markus Mantere / Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki
Saijaleena Rantanen / Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki
Kaarina Kilpiö / Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki
Marianne Mieskolainen (symposium secretary) / Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki
Johanna Rauhaniemi (symposium coordinator) / Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki

CFP, International Conference, NewsHelene Heuser