Call for Manifestoes for RMA Annual Conference Session: New Manifestoes for Process in Music. The study group is seeking proposals for manifestoes as 5 minute videos or 500 word statements for a conference session. Please send your manifesto to Dr Lauren Redhead (lauren.redhead@canterbury.ac.uk) by 1st June if you would like to be included.

NB: it is likely that the study group will not be able to include all manifestoes received, but will consider those not part of the session for the future publication derived from it. Please also note the commitment to gender balance in this session; women and non-binary artists are especially encouraged to apply.

Rationale

The Music and/as Process Study group has frequently cited approaches to process in music by Reich (1975) and Nyman (1974). While not the only approaches or descriptions of musical processes, these are some of the most commonly cited and understood examples. These references might act as touchstones for those with an interest in musical processes, but they do not encompass the full range of approaches to music and/as process that the study group represents. More recent approaches to process in music, such as those that can be found in Gottschalk (2016) or Saunders et al (2009) are also of interest to those scholars who contribute to the study group, but are essentially historical and/or analytical, describing the process-based approaches to music that have been taken, but not necessarily defining those that will, or might be taken. The practices of particular composers, such as Tom Johnson, Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff, Phill Niblock, James Tenney and Éliane Radigue, to name a few examples, provides further points of contact but similarly examples or points of departure rather than approaches to musical processes for future study and creative practice. In addition, the activities of the study group have highlighted the need to further understand the impacts of current research upon perceptual and cognitive systems of processes in music.

Therefore, the aims of this session are threefold:

• to refresh the understanding of the scope and definition of musical processes within the study group by inviting provocative approaches to the topic,
• to re-examine the manifesto as a tool for artistic practice in music, and
• to promote performative approaches to musicology beyond the historical, analytical, and observational.

The session will comprise new manifestos addressing the topic of process in music.We welcome these from the members of the study group, and musicologists and creative artists with similar interests internationally. We also welcome and encourage practice-research and interdisciplinary or performative responses alongside the traditionally written or text-based. The selection process will prioritise diversity, with an expectation of selecting at least 50% female or non-binary scholars/artists. As such, it will attempt to address gender disparity in existing writing on musical processes as a secondary aim.

Each manifesto will be limited to 500 words or 5 minutes, to be delivered at the conference in person as a paper or performance, or as a video. The session will respond to these manifestos through  invited respondents who will expand on the shared themes and approaches that may be found across the selected manifestos, and will suggest future directions for the study of process in music.