Events

CALL FOR PAPERS: ERA ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Unheard Legacies: Rethinking Early Recording Histories

University of Glasgow, 19 and 20 June 2026

Deadline: 1 February 2026

The Early Recordings Association (ERA) invites proposals for papers, lecture-recitals, and panel discussions for its Annual Conference, to be held 19–20 June 2026 at the University of Glasgow.

The 2026 conference, titled “Unheard Legacies: Rethinking Early Recording Histories”, aims to provide a forum for exploring lesser-known figures, geographies, and practices in early recorded sound. This conference seeks to provide a counter-narrative to US- and Euro-centric histories, centering underrepresented contributions in early sound recording. Continuing our tradition of engaging both academic and non-academic audiences, ERA welcomes submissions from early-career researchers, postgraduate students, established experts, enthusiasts, and collectors. Proposals may cover topics including, but not limited to, the following (all in the context of lesser-known histories):

• Early recording technologies and practices
• Early recordings as documents of historical performance practices
• Cultural and societal significance of early recordings
• Discographies and record archiving
• Database creation for discographic data and audio files
• Early recording collections and collecting practices

While we will consider all proposals related to the topic of historical recorded sound, proposals with a clear connection to the conference’s theme are particularly encouraged and will be prioritized. We welcome proposals for individual papers (20 minutes, plus 10-minutes for questions), lecture-recitals (35 minutes, plus 10 minutes for questions), and panel discussions (1 hour and 30 minutes in total). Please send your abstracts (maximum 300 words) and short biographies (120 words) to earlyrecordingsassociation@surrey.ac.uk, including the applicant’s institutional affiliation and contact details. Deadline for submissions is 1 February. The programme committee will communicate its decision by 1 March 2026, and the full programme will be announced by 1 April 2026.

Programme Committee: Eva Moreda Rodríguez (University of Glasgow), Inja Stanović (University of Surrey), Patrick Feaster (First Sounds Initiative), Nikos Ordoulidis (Kounadis Archive).

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CLPGS Richard Taylor Bursary – Call for Applications

The City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society (CLPGS) is the oldest society of its kind devoted to recorded sound and early talking machines, founded in 1919 with Thomas Edison as Patron. The Society supports and encourages scholarship and publication by individuals in the fields of sound recordings, early talking machines, and audio preservation. The CLPGS Richard Taylor Bursary exists to fund eligible projects in these areas, including discography, bibliography, historical studies of the sound recording industry and its products, company and record-label research, the history of talking machines, technological developments, and any other subject likely to increase the public's understanding and appreciation of the lasting importance of recorded sound.

Bursary grants are primarily (but not exclusively) intended to encourage applications from individuals whose research forms part of a master’s or doctoral academic programme. They may also support independent research and publishing projects. Both CLPGS members and non-members are eligible to apply for Bursary grants of at least £500. Grant funds may be used to cover clerical, travel, and editorial expenses. Funds may not be used to purchase capital equipment or recordings, create recordings (including field recordings), perform operations on sound recordings, reimburse applicants for work already performed, or support projects forming part of paid employment. Grant recipients may submit documentation to reclaim reasonable additional expenses, which must be claimed within eighteen months of the award.

Grant recipients are required to provide regular status updates to CLPGS and are encouraged to submit their results for publication in the CLPGS Journal For the Record. Recipients may also be invited to present their project outcomes at a CLPGS London meeting.

Application Requirements:

1. Project summary – One page maximum, with sample work attached if possible.
2. Budget outline – One page maximum, highlighting costs to be covered by the Bursary, any committed funds, and any pending funding requests (include source, amount, and purpose).
3. Curriculum Vitae – One page maximum.
4. Prospects for dissemination – Indicate potential publication or other public presentation(s) of project results.

All applications should be emailed to Dr. Inja Stanović at: i.stanovic@surrey.ac.uk

Closing date for applications: 31st March 2026

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Call for papers: Two symposiums on rethinking history, music, and media in 20th c. Empires: due 9 November 2025

Building on research conducted under the ERC advanced grant, The Sound of Empire in 20th c. Colonial Cultures: Rethinking History through Music (MusiCol), following symposiums offer extraordinary opportunities for “rethinking history,” through collaboration and dialogue, across disciplines and national cultures:

MusiCol’s first international symposium, “Music as Relation” (Nice, 13-15 April 2026), probes what musical fields of production contribute to current debates on the nature of empire and colonial identities in urban capitals of 20th c. empires. To what extent did music education, musical collaborations, and music in religious and theatrical contexts shape and maintain communities for both settlers and local people? What might they have contributed new constructions of what it meant to be “European” and “indigenous” in modern colonial cultures, be they, traditional, hybrid, or modern? Musical activities, one can argue, offer a persuasive medium for studying how colonizer and colonized, as Fred Cooper (2005) has observed, could be “mutually shaped in intimate engagement,” despite colonial asymmetries.

MusiCol’s second international symposium, “Music and Media in 20th c. Empires,” (Paris, 16-18 April 2026) invites researchers from diverse disciplines to consider new perspectives and methodologies in the study of recordings and music on colonial radio. How and to what end did these media depend on local participation, while transgressing social and geographic boundaries? How did these empower and document the evolution of indigenous and western aurality and whose interests did they express and represent? Recording and colonial radio present opportunities to explore history through their use and tastes shared across regions and empires,  and how the complexity of colonial and musical coexistence was negotiated and post-colonial identities evolved.

We invite submissions of original research that critically engage with the symposium themes and seek to generate in-depth comparative analysis of diverse contexts among all the modern empires—French, British, Portuguese, Dutch and others-- to better understand the history of cultural relations in today’s diverse societies.

Visit the following link for details and the submission form: https://musicol.ucsd.edu/wp6b/

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Piano Roll event in Madrid, Spanish National Library, 19 November 2025

Online talk by Peter Philips, at a Piano Roll event in Madrid. This event will take place in the Spanish National Library and we will have a discussion before his presentation with the responsible for the sound recordings in the Library. 

The event can be followed by streaming: https://www.bne.es/es/agenda/incunables-sonoros-legado-pianolas-rollos-musica