CfP: 92. Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (14.-15.112026 & 19.-20.11.2026, online) Deadline: 17.02.2026

92. Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society

Deadline: 17 February 2026, 11:59 p.m. EST

Read the full CfP here: https://2026online.ams-net.org/call-for-proposals/

Submit your proposal here: https://2026online.ams-net.org/submissions/

Overview

The American Musicological Society (AMS) calls for proposals for sessions, workshops, roundtables, and film screenings to be held at the ninety-second Annual Meeting of the Society in November 2026.

The ninety-second Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS) will be held on Saturday and Sunday, 14–15 November 2026 and Thursday and Friday, 19–20 November 2026. The meeting will be held online as well as streamed from various locations around the world, and will include sessions and performances organized by the International Musicological Society’s (IMS) regional associations for Latin America and the Caribbean (ARLAC) and East Asia (IMSEA).

The AMS Annual Meeting, organized continuously since 1934, is a celebration of the AMS community designed to promote the study and teaching of music. It encourages and explores inquiry about music through a range of approaches and presentational modes, including historical musicology, creative practice, ethnography, analysis, performance, musical demonstrations, policy, civic engagement, sound artifact curation, and digital humanities. Guided by the AMS’s Statement on Fair Practice and Representation, the American Musicological Society seeks to create a welcoming environment in which the many diverse members of the Society may develop and flourish, and in which all conference-goers find a forum for exciting conversations about the music they love.

Structure of the AMS Online Meeting

The AMS Board of Directors has directed that every three years the AMS Annual Meeting should be held online to support accessibility and reduce the Society’s environmental impact. Thus, the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting will be held online, with select special events streamed from around the world. The online meeting is intended as a forum for connecting with partners and constituents around the world who might not otherwise be able to travel to an in-person AMS Annual Meeting. And thus, the AMS strongly encourages the submission of proposals by individuals who might not otherwise be able to attend an in-person meeting.

In order to accommodate multiple time zones, the Annual Meeting schedule will be largely organized around two time blocks: 1) Time Block A (10 a.m.–4 p.m. ET) and 2) Time Block B (6 p.m.–10:30 p.m. ET). Presenters will be scheduled in the time block that best suits their local time, with all sessions recorded and archived for later viewing. While most sessions will occur online (via Zoom), a small portion of performances, sessions, and special events will occur locally in front of live audiences and be streamed to attendees elsewhere. For those interested in hosting locally organized events for streaming, AMS funding is available. (See the “Funding” section of this call.)  

Proposal Types

The Society invites presenters to submit proposals for sessions, posters, or papers in the formats listed below. A successful proposal articulates the main points of the presentation clearly, positions its contributions in the context of previous work, and suggests its significance for the conference attendees. Session organizers must also identify a session chair, and are advised to convene panels that are diverse and explore a variety of perspectives. (All persons accepted to participate in the AMS Annual Meeting must register for the conference.)

  • Session Proposals. The Society strongly encourages potential participants to collaborate on proposals for 90-minute sessions composed of three papers and a Q&A period. Each paper is 20 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. If a session consists of research presentations, all work proposed must be original. Session organizers are responsible for submitting a summary session abstract as well as individual paper abstracts. Organizers must also indicate a session chair and may include a respondent/discussant.

  • Individual Proposals. The Society invites individual paper proposals. Paper presenters will have up to 20 minutes to present their work. All work proposed for presentation at the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting must be original. The Program Committee will compile individual accepted paper proposals into topically-based paper sessions, which will feature three papers and at least 30 minutes for Q&A. A select number of accepted paper proposals will be compiled into paper forums. Paper forums also consist of three paper presentations, but are designed to foster closer intellectual connections and conversation among presenters. To help accomplish this, the AMS identifies papers that are on very closely related topics and assigns a discussant to provide additional perspective. Unlike paper sessions, paper forums have a single Q&A at the end of the session, rather than three separate short Q&A periods after the delivery of each paper.

  • Workshops. The Society encourages the submission of workshop proposals. Workshops are practical sessions intended to educate attendees about a specific professional area or help them cultivate a specific skill or set of skills. Workshops should be interactive and provide opportunities for attendees to practice or utilize the information conveyed. They may combine performance, lecture, and practicum, include discussions of publications or creative works, and be led by one or more workshop leaders. Proposals should list participants and outline the format of the workshop. Organizers must also indicate a session chair who is not also a workshop leader.

  • Roundtables. The Society welcomes roundtable proposals. Roundtables provide a space for participants to engage in dialogue with each other, and the audience, about issues, works, and developments of professional and intellectual interest. Roundtables might, for example, include forums with scholars, community activists, artists, public officials, performance artists, curators, and educators. The purpose of roundtables is to provide a forum for lively and engaging discussion. Organizers must indicate a session chair who is not formally a discussant within the roundtable but who may contribute to the discussion at times.

  • Posters. The Society encourages submissions of poster presentation proposals. Poster presentations are visual explorations of a research project or argument, and will be displayed in a designated area of the conference’s online platform. All work proposed for presentation at the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting must be original. Posters should follow the guidelines for the submission of individual paper proposals but also include an explanation of the content and goals of the visual materials. Poster presenters may include a short recorded video presentation to explain and elucidate the content of their visual materials. Full guidelines for formatting poster materials will be provided upon acceptance.

  • Films. The Society invites the submission of proposals for film screenings and discussions. This proposal type offers space for presenters to display a recently completed or in-progress film or video. Film sessions include the time necessary to screen the film, as well as a maximum of 60 minutes for introduction and discussion. Proposals should include the film’s title, its length, and subject, and an outline for the introduction and discussion.

All proposal abstracts must be 350 words or less. For guidance on how to prepare an effective proposal abstract, see Guidelines for Writing an AMS Abstract prepared by the AMS Committee on the Annual Meeting and Public Events (CAMPE) and the AMS Program Committee.

Areas of Special Interest

In an effort to encourage proposals in areas of special interest or urgency to the Society and its constituents, the Committee on the Annual Meeting and Public Events (CAMPE) has designated certain topic areas or types of sessions as being of “special interest.” This designation means that the Society would like to see more of these types of proposals or sessions in the submission pool and will prioritize the acceptance of such proposals.

For the 2026 AMS Online Annual Meeting, CAMPE has designated the following as being of “special interest.”

  • Professional Development Workshops, Sessions, and Roundtables
    The AMS particularly welcomes proposals for sessions that offer practical strategies that address the challenges, needs, and concerns of music studies performers and professionals. For the purposes of this call, a “professional development” session is understood to mean any workshop, roundtable, or other type of session primarily focused on helping participants do one or more of the following:

    • Acquire and improve work-related skills, including archival and pedagogical skills, strategies for increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion in workplaces, and more;

    • Better understand and navigate the processes of entering or advancing in a particular career or line of work (including devising strategies for navigating specific challenges or constraints); or

    • Build stronger and more supportive networks of peers and colleagues.

  • Session Proposals
    The AMS particularly welcomes proposals for full sessions, on any theme or area of music studies. The Society’s goal is to maximize discussion among participants by programming highly coherent sessions that clearly and cogently explore an area or topic from multiple perspectives. Potential participants should collaborate on proposals for 90-minute sessions of three papers. Organizers must also indicate a session chair and may include a respondent if appropriate.

As an incentive to submitters, proposals that focus on these areas of special interest will be preferentially treated by the Program Committee and are more likely (although by no means guaranteed) to be included in the program.

Submission Procedures/Restrictions

Proposals must be received by 11:59 p.m. EST, 17 February 2026. Proposals are to be submitted electronically. A link to the proposal submission site will be made available on or before 10 December 2025. (Note: Access to the proposal submission portal ceases precisely at the deadline. To avoid technical problems with submission, please submit at least twenty-four hours before the deadline.)

Only one proposal per person is allowed. No one may appear on the program more than twice. (Note: Committee and study group sessions are excluded from this rule.) An individual may participate in any one of the presentation formats listed above and appear one other time on the program as a chair of a session or a respondent.

A successful proposal articulates the main points of the presentation clearly, positions its contributions in the context of previous knowledge, and suggests its significance for conference attendees. Session organizers are advised to convene panels with diverse and representative participants.

(NOTE: The Alternate Years Rule is not in effect for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting. Individuals appearing on the 2025 annual meeting program are not restricted from submitting a proposal in 2026.)


Proposal Review

All AMS Annual Meeting proposals are read and rated by a large pool of volunteer reviewers. All members of this pool of reviewers, usually numbering sixty or more, hold advanced degrees in musicology or related fields and are randomly assigned proposals to review. Proposals are then reviewed and assembled into a program by the members of the Program Committee working in concert with the AMS Office. During the review stage, abstracts are blindly reviewed and rated without reference to the identity of the author(s). Reviewer ratings are then statistically normalized, pooled, and shared with the Program Committee, which has access to the full details of all proposals. (The call for members to volunteer to serve as reviewers will go out in late December 2025. Those submitting proposals to the Program Committee are not eligible to serve as Annual Meeting reviewers.)

The Society aims to create a balanced and wide-ranging program, selecting preferentially from the most highly rated proposals but with the primary aim of thematic diversity. Guidance on preparing a winning conference proposal, with examples of highly rated proposals from prior years, is available on the AMS website.

Proposal decision notices are sent out in the first week of June.

Committee, Study Group, and Affiliate Proposals

Sessions organized by AMS committees, study groups, and affiliates are not reviewed by the Program Committee and have a separate proposal submission process and deadline. (See the “AMS 2026 Call for Committee and Study Group Proposals.”) The deadline for the submission of these proposals is 11:59 p.m. EDT, 16 March 2026. Committees and study groups that fail to submit their proposals by that deadline may forfeit their right to have their sessions included on the program; including annually recurring sessions, such as named lectureships. 

Funding

For its 2026 AMS Annual Meeting, the American Musicological Society will provide funding of up to $3,500 for the organization and hosting of locally held live-viewing events and specially organized sessions to be streamed to the larger conference audience. This funding will be made available to interested AMS affiliates (chapters, study groups, and committees) and is contingent on application and acceptance.

The goal of this funding will be to encourage in-person gatherings of AMS members and constituents throughout the 2026 Annual Meeting and thereby maintain and strengthen the networks and interpersonal connections that might otherwise be disrupted by a fully online meeting. Funding, if awarded, may be used to cover a range of expenses associated with the organization of in-person watch parties and special events, including catering, venue, speaker fees, videography and technical support, etc. More details on applying for funding to host in-person watch parties and special events will be released in late fall 2025 and early winter 2026.

CFP, NewsHelene Heuser