The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) 2023 Conference will occur in two parts: the first in-person in NYC, and the second as a rhizomatic series of events in local areas.
Part I: In-Person Event in NYC
Part I of the conference will be hosted by SEAMUS this year, April 7th – 8th, 2023, using spaces at the DiMenna Center in NYC. We apologize for scheduling a date that overlaps with a day of religious significance; constraints have necessitated this. Scheduling will be implemented as sensitively as possible, allowing those composers who can attend only one day rather than the other to ask for this consideration.
Paper presentations, workshops, panel discussions, and installations will take place at NYU Music Department facilities. Support staff will be provided by volunteers from local institutions including Stony Brook University. The SEAMUS Conference 2023 Committee welcomes all members interested in volunteering as part of the production team. Registration fees will be waived for all volunteers.
Part II: Rhizomatic Local Event Presentation
Part II of the Conference 2023 will be a day of collected asynchronous rhizomatically linked remote events, moderated with a live feed in April (dates to be determined by hosts). This event will then be archived on the SEAMUS site.
For our purposes, rhizomatic indicates a network that is loosely related and non-hierarchical, existing in spaces all over the country. The concept of the “rhizome” also has a more specific definition and history in philosophy, which you can read about here.
Schools or organizations or individuals/groups of individuals interested in hosting their own rhizomatic events in their local areas should submit via the submission portal as well.
SUBMISSIONS
SEAMUS members may make one submission in each of the following three categories:
- creative works,
- paper presentations (including panel discussions or workshops), and
- installations
All submissions to these three categories will be considered for both Part I and Part II of the conference, with some exceptions outlined below.
Category Descriptions
Music: please send works of fixed media or live electronics, for 1–8 channels; works that combine sound and image/video; electroacoustic works incorporating live instrumentalist(s), up to 5 players. All styles and technical approaches are welcome. Due to the distributed nature of this year’s conference, and the shorter duration of Part I in NYC, please consider submitting shorter works (10′ or less). Longer works may be considered for late-night Part I events, or for interested Part II hosts.
Papers: please send topics for either a 20-min or a 30-min time slot. Topics especially welcome are those that support the SEAMUS mission of studying past and present electroacoustic music and its social, cultural and artistic practices; technical research and realizations; and listening practices. Papers may also discuss specific music presented in the Conference itself. Please submit panel discussion or workshop proposals in the paper submission category. The appropriate duration will be worked out independently for accepted proposals.
Installations: please send submissions for any installation. If accepted, these will be set up during Part I in NYC. Installation presentation will be limited by pragmatic constraints, but every effort will be made to present accepted installations. Online-only interactive installations are also welcome for the rhizomatic Part II.
All remote March-April events will be collated and presented asynchronously, online, live in the latter half of April on a TBD date, with interactive moderation. These rhizomatic remote events will then be archived for viewing on the SEAMUS website.
Adjudication for all conference events will happen at the same time. Submitter preference for attendance (in-person or remote) will be noted.
Call for Rhizomatic Event Hosts and Presenters
Please submit (individuals or teams) proposals for concerts, presentations, demonstrations, or other events which will occur at your home institutions or non-institutionally linked home locations.
You must be willing to document the event with audio and video, even in the case of a fixed media work. SEAMUS may be able to assist hosts financially in rare situations.
SEAMUS will be contacting all members who submitted such ideas back in late Spring 2022, to determine if you are still interested. It will be easiest, however, if you resubmit.
Policies
Attendance. Composers interested in being programmed/programmed at the in-person event in NYC must be willing to be present at the concert. SEAMUS is committed to facilitating affordable lodging for attendees; more on this will be posted later.
Submission limits. Submitters are limited to one work per category. This limitation includes collaborations. If a submitter is a creator or co-creator of more than one work, they will be asked to choose which work to move forward for adjudication. To avoid these conflicts, please contact your collaborators before submitting.
An active SEAMUS membership is not a requirement for submitting to the main conference, or to the rhizomatic events. It is a requirement, however, for confirmation of programming on the conference. Joining or renewing a membership will be requisite within a week of notification in order to remain on the acceptance list.
Fees. There is no submission fee. Conference registration fees will be kept as low as possible. SEAMUS will, in rare cases, consider applications for conference registration fee hardship waivers.
Adjudication. SEAMUS adjudication is a peer-reviewed double-blind process. All submissions must be anonymous. Any information revealing the creator’s or author’s identity will be disqualified. Technical/logistical feasibility will be the only consideration subsequent to the adjudication process. More details are available here.
Inclusivity. Read SEAMUS’s Statement of Non-Discrimination here.
Dates. The submission portal will open October 10th, 2022 and close 11:59 PM AoE on November 15th, 2022. Notifications will be made in late December 2022 – early January 2023.