EuroMAC 11 Rationale

Since its first edition in 1989, EuroMAC has served as a key forum for scholars, researchers, and practitioners in music theory and analysis across Europe and beyond. Over more than three decades, it has reflected the evolution of the discipline—from the consolidation of analytical methods and national societies to the emergence of broader, interdisciplinary, and globally connected approaches. Each edition has contributed to redefining the purposes, languages, and communities of music-analytical research.

EuroMAC 11 in Barcelona will continue this trajectory while asking whether music analysis today stands at a point of crisis or renewed vitality. The conference aims to foster dialogue on the present and future of the discipline, considering both its historical legacies and its evolving intersections with contemporary thought and practice. Three overarching thematic vectors are proposed as possible lenses through which to engage:

Ontology – The Nature of the Discipline.
What does it mean to do music theory and analysis in 2026? Does the current diversification of approaches represent a fragmentation of the field or the consolidation of a new interdisciplinary domain?

Impact – Music Analysis and Today’s Challenges.
How do global transformations—climate crisis, social and cultural inequalities, migration, shifting identities, digitalization, and artificial intelligence—reshape analytical concerns? And conversely, how might the practices and epistemologies of music analysis inform our understanding of these challenges?

Pragmatics – Objects, Mediation, and Education.
How are changes in music’s social functions, modes of dissemination, and technologies of listening and learning affecting the analytical object itself, as well as the pedagogies and research methods of the discipline?

By articulating these questions, EuroMAC 11 seeks to reaffirm the conference’s dual mission: to represent the diversity and excellence of music-theoretical research in Europe, and to offer a space for collective reflection on its epistemological, cultural, and institutional futures.

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