[Commlist] CfP: “MusicalSustainabilities���

Call for Presentations

Musical Sustainabilities
18–19 November 2024, Seinäjoki, Finland

The Seinäjoki Unit of the University of the Arts Helsinki is pleased to 
announce an international symposium on “musical sustainabilities.” As 
the Sustainable Development Goals issued by the United Nations attest, 
sustainability has become a wide-ranging issue globally. While 
originally linked to the maintenance of natural resources, it has 
evolved to cover social, economic and cultural issues. Concerning music, 
the most apparent of these relate to work, production and industry, 
consumption and live music, and communities and institutions.

Indeed, music provides propitious possibilities for addressing the 
multiple and often contradictory facets of sustainability. The music 
industry has been associated with excessive consumption and waste, and 
the digital transition is less likely to be green, due to the sheer 
increase in music – and energy – consumed. The environmental crisis has 
been diversely represented in musical works and sound art, and civic 
groups implement musical practices in their campaigning for climate 
action. At the same time, music plays an important role in the promotion 
of social and cultural sustainability due to its malleability in 
identity construction and support to the social resilience of groups and 
organisations. However, music can also be used as a tool for exclusion, 
and unequal access to music education reinforces existing social 
divides. Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable in many 
respects, ranging from the impacts of global warming to social and 
economic challenges, thus complicating the transmission of cultural and 
musical traditions to future generations. Questions of sustainability 
are furthermore central in music heritagisation, or how diverse groups 
and institutions work and labour to preserve and safeguard what they 
consider worthy to be labelled “heritage.” The symposium organisers 
welcome individual paper and panel proposals from a broad range of 
approaches addressing the relationship between music and sustainability 
in all its diversity. A variety of scholarly standpoints, voices and 
disciplines is encouraged, as well as contributions from professionals 
working in the interface of music and sustainability within the 
cultural, education and heritage sectors.
Suitable themes include but are not limited to:
•	the music/event/creative industries and sustainability;
•	diversity and inclusion in music education;
•	the role of music in green transition;
•	preservation and transmission of music traditions and heritage;
•	music communities, social resilience and wellbeing;
•	music professions, labour and precarity;
•	music institutions and service development;
•	musical activity, democracy and civic participation;
•	sustainable music policies and spaces;
•	musical nightlife and sustainability;
•	the environmental crisis in musical/sound works and practices.

Alongside conventional papers and panels, the organisers welcome other 
presentation forms as well (e.g., films, workshops). Please send an 
abstract to (musicalsustainabilities /at/ gmail.com), no later than 10 June 
2024. Please make sure to include in your abstract:
•	the name(s) of presenter(s) and their affiliation(s);
•	contact information (email);
•	the title of the presentation;
•	the text body of no more than 300 words;
•	3–5 keywords.

If you are proposing a full panel, please include a summary of no more 
than 100 words alongside individual abstracts (max 300 words each).
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 30 June 2024. For further 
information, please contact (musicalsustainabilities /at/ gmail.com).

The symposium will take place at the Museum of South Ostrobothnia in 
Törnävä, Seinäjoki, Finland. Seinäjoki is a regional urban centre 
located some 300 km north from Helsinki and served by several direct 
train connections daily. Details about registration, travels, 
accommodation and participation fees will be communicated in due course.

The members of the organising committee are Antti-Ville Villén (chair), 
Giacomo Bottà, Karoliina Lummaa, Anna Peltomäki and Susanna Tyrväinen. 
The event is organised in collaboration with the Seinäjoki Museums, with 
support from the University Consortium Seinäjoki and the research 
project “Diversity of Music Heritage in Finland”, funded by Kone 
Foundation (2023–25).

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