[theoriae doxa] I. 

 

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RESIDENCY PROGRAM FOR MUSICOLOGISTS, WRITERS, SCHOLARS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTIC DIRECTORS

[October 2026–June 2027]

An international residency exploring IDEALS, REALITY, SURPRISE: A New Introduction to New Music as a framework for critical inquiry, collaborative research, and independent public discourse through online seminars, working groups, and festival presentations.

 

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PROGRAM AT A GLANCE

 

Program period: October 2026–June 2027
Format: Four online seminars followed by an on-site residency
On-site location: Bled, Slovenia (EU)
Final presentation: Seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week
Application deadline: September 15, 2026

 

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FORMAT 

 

Stage I.| October 19, 20, 2026

- 2 online seminars

- Individual participants and groups present their drafts, papers, research projects, and portfolios

- Q&A

 

Stage II.| December 16, 17, 2026

- 2 online seminars

- Critical inquiry into and discussion of the theme IDEALS, REALITY, SURPRISE: A New Introduction to New Music

- Development of and critical reflection on participants’ research, writing, and projects

- Q&A

 

Stage III.| June 14-25, 2027

- Research presentations and lectures at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia

- Working groups and symposia dedicated to collective inquiry, critical debate, and exchange

- Opportunity for selected contributions to be considered for publication in Tempo: The Quarterly Review of New Music, an international journal dedicated to contemporary and experimental music and published by Wolke Verlag

 

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ABOUT THE RESIDENCY

[theoriae doxa] I. is an international, research-oriented residency for musicologists, writers, scholars, philosophers, and artistic directors whose work critically engages contemporary and experimental music. Extending from September 2026 to June 2027, the program supports papers, essays, lectures, research projects, curatorial propositions, institutional analyses, and independent critical practice. It culminates in presentations, working groups, and symposia at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia (EU).

The residency is organized around IDEALS, REALITY, SURPRISE: A New Introduction to New Music. This formulation treats “new music” neither as a self-evident stylistic category nor as a stable repertory or settled institutional field. It approaches new music as a historically produced and contested designation shaped by aesthetic values, material conditions, disciplinary narratives, technologies, institutions, and forms of public attention.

Participants investigate the ideals through which musical newness is imagined and legitimated; the realities under which music is produced, circulated, interpreted, and heard; and the surprises through which works, evidence, encounters, or arguments disturb established accounts. “A new introduction” does not promise a definitive map. It names a collective task: to reconsider where an introduction begins, whose knowledge it includes, which histories it presupposes, and how it might remain plural, revisable, and accountable.

Four online seminars provide a sustained context for presenting work, testing concepts, examining sources, refining methods, and receiving substantive feedback. The on-site phase brings these inquiries into relation with festival performances, institutions, practitioners, and publics. Research is approached not as detached observation, and discourse not as secondary commentary, but as practices participating in musical knowledge, historical memory, aesthetic judgment, and public culture.

The residency welcomes divergent intellectual traditions and methods, including historical musicology, philosophy, aesthetics, critical theory, sound studies, artistic research, curatorial studies, journalism, archival inquiry, media theory, sociology, anthropology, and interdisciplinary approaches. Participating projects should demonstrate precise argumentation, responsible use of evidence, methodological self-reflection, and attention to the conditions under which claims about contemporary music become possible.

 

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MENTORS

 

Dr. Alastair White 

Urban Megušar, Double M.Mus.

Dr. Niki Zohdi

Dr. Dré A. Hočevar 

 

COORDINATOR

 

Brina Kren