The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Culture [research group]
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RESIDENCY PROGRAMME FOR MUSIC JOURNALISTS, CRITICS, WRITERS, EDITORS, AND RESEARCHERS
[October 2026 – June 2027]
The New Lexicon is a research residency devoted to the investigation, articulation, and advancement of philosophy of music culture as a field of inquiry. It convenes musicologists and artists who approach music not as an autonomous object, but as a cultural practice through which identities, values, memories, relations, institutions, and forms of life are produced, negotiated, contested, and transformed.
Across four online seminars and a culminating public residency, participants will articulate the conceptual grounds of their work, develop artistic and research projects through dialogue, and contribute to a plural vocabulary for thinking music culture anew.
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PROGRAM AT A GLANCE
Program period: October 2026–June 2027
Format: Four online seminars followed by an on-site festival phase
On-site location: Bled, Slovenia (EU)
Public presentation: Seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week
Application deadline: September 30, 2026
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FORMAT
Stage I | Articulation and Presentation | November 4, 5, 2026
Two online seminars introduce participants’ practices, projects, and research questions, with attention to their cultural contexts, methods, assumptions, and stakes.
Stage II | Critical Inquiry and Development | February 10, 11, 2027
Two online seminars examine how music acquires meaning through performance, listening, media, institutions, technologies, economies, histories, and social relations, while establishing trajectories for artistic and research development.
Stage III | Public Presentation and Exchange | June 14-25, 2027
Participants present research, lectures, artistic work, and discussions at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia.
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RESIDENCY OVERVIEW
The New Lexicon is an international research residency dedicated to the critical investigation, articulation, and advancement of philosophy of music culture as a field of inquiry. It convenes musicologists and artists who understand music not as an autonomous object existing apart from social life, but as a cultural practice through which identities, values, memories, forms of belonging, relations of power, and possibilities of collective experience are produced, negotiated, contested, and transformed.
Across four online seminars and a culminating public residency, participants will articulate the conceptual grounds of their practices, develop artistic and research projects through sustained critical dialogue, and contribute to a shared yet plural vocabulary for thinking music culture anew. The residency is addressed to musicologists and artists whose work raises questions that cannot be resolved by disciplinary analysis alone. These questions may concern the cultural meanings of sound and silence; the formation of musical identities and communities; the authority of canons, genres, archives, and institutions; the politics of representation and participation; the circulation of music through media and markets; the relation between cultural memory and historical erasure; or the ways musical practices organize attention, affect, public life, and social difference. Participants need not subscribe to a particular philosophical tradition, research method, or artistic orientation. What matters is a willingness to examine the premises of one’s work, expose its assumptions to collective inquiry, and engage seriously with positions different from one’s own.
The New Lexicon is neither a conventional conference nor a workshop in which culture serves only as context for completed works. It is a practice-based environment where philosophy, musicology, and artistic practice enter into reciprocal relation. Philosophical inquiry clarifies concepts and tests claims; musicological and artistic practices generate situated knowledge that may challenge inherited theory. The programme asks how music is made cultural, how culture is made musical, and what becomes thinkable when these processes are examined together.
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MENTORS
Dr. Alastair White
Urban Megušar, Double M.Mus.
Dr. Niki Zohdi
Dr. Dré A. Hočevar
COORDINATOR
Brina Kren
DATES
MENTORS
PROGRAMME FORMAT
RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
WHO THE PROGRAMME ADDRESSES
TOWARDS MULTIPLE PHILOSOPHIES OF MUSIC CULTURE
APPLICATION
APPLICATION FORM AND
PARTICIPATION FEES
The New Lexicon program is produced by .abeceda Institute
.abeceda [Institute for Research in Art, Critical Thought and Philosophy], a public-benefit NGO and non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing contemporary artistic practices and critical inquiry. Through its innovative programmes, .abeceda has gained international recognition as one of the leading platforms for contemporary music and artistic research in the Adriatic region and across Europe: www.abeceda.io