The Society for Minimalist Music is pleased to announce that the University of Maryland School of Music will host the 10th International Conference on Music and Minimalism May 7–10, 2026, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The four-day conference will feature keynote lectures by musicologists Anne Searcy and Benjamin D. Piekut;  a keynote concert and talk by composer Kali Malone; performances by students and faculty from the University of Maryland's School of Music and School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies; and research presentations from visiting scholars and musicians. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to take advantage of the university's location right outside Washington, DC, including a visit to the Library of Congress to view materials related to musical minimalism, such as the recently-processed John Adams Collection. This conference is being organized by William Robin, wrobin@umd.edu

We look forward to seeing you in College Park in May!

Call for Papers

The year 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, and Catherine Christer Hennix’s The Electric Harpsichord, all epochal works that have helped define minimalism in the world of experimental music and the popular imagination. It is also the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Society for Minimalist Music. In this year of landmark anniversaries, the Tenth International Conference on Music and Minimalism will focus on celebrating and interrogating minimalist and postminimalist music in its many forms, examining its impact across the arts and global culture. 

The Tenth International Conference on Music and Minimalism will take place May 7–10, 2026, hosted by the University of Maryland’s School of Music in College Park, MD, right outside Washington, DC. Concerts will include the music of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Julius Eastman, Meredith Monk, John Adams, and composer and organist Kali Malone. 

The Society for Minimalist Music welcomes submissions from scholars and practitioners of minimalist and postminimalist music, broadly conceived. We invite papers on all topics related to minimalist music, and encourage papers that examine the following areas:

• The fiftieth anniversary of 1976, and minimalist music created in or performed that year

• The twentieth anniversary of the Society for Minimalist Music, and the historiography of scholarship and criticism focused on musical minimalism

• Minimalism across the arts, including the visual arts, theatre, dance, film, television, and videogames

• Minimalist music across genres, including ambient music, jazz, pop, rock, EDM, and global musical traditions

• Minimalism and the political in a period of rising authoritarianism 

• Minimalism and local experimental music scenes beyond New York, especially in cities such as Washington, DC and Baltimore

• The music of Kali Malone and other musicians who work with organ, just intonation, and drone-based idioms

Formats:

(1) individual papers (20 minutes)

(2) themed sessions (3–4 papers, each 20 minutes)

(3) lecture-recitals (30 minutes): for composers or performers to present or perform minimalism-related work

Keynotes:

Kali Malone 

The composer and organist will perform her program All Life Long at the University of Maryland’s Memorial Chapel and give a keynote talk.

Benjamin D. Piekut, Cornell University 

Musicologist and author of Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits and Henry Cow: The World Is A Problem

Anne Searcy, University of Washington 

Musicologist and author of Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange, currently working on Choreographing Minimalism: Music, Neoliberalism, and the Creation of Contemporary Ballet 

Program committee:

William Robin

Kerry O’Brien

Anna Rose Nelson

Ryan Ebright

Sarah Hill

Maarten Beirens

**Members of the Society will be eligible to apply for bursaries to support their travel to Washington, DC. Application details will be included in acceptance emails. 

Please submit abstracts (250 words) to this Google Form by December 15, 2025:

https://forms.gle/AYSSnKy5iGsWG6hY6 

For themed sessions, please submit all abstracts together with an additional abstract describing your session theme (100 words).

Please email any questions to wrobin@umd.edu.