Nova Contemporary Music Meeting (NCMM) is a biennial, 3-day international conference focused on a variety of questions relating to music since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Music today is more diverse than ever before. The diversity of genres, practices, techniques, technologies, systems of distribution and forms of reception places it in a new context in which the foundations of previous assumptions are being shaken and new paradigms are emerging. Music, past and present, is now ubiquitous in our society, from the concert hall to the museum, from the media to public spaces, to private listening through headphones. As a result of each of these and other situations, the study of music is now challenging and depends on a variety of artistic and scientific fields.

In this context, the NCMM was conceived as a contribution to the development of multidisciplinary and collaborative research in the field of contemporary music. It consists of a research meeting that brings together researchers, musicologists, composers and performers working in different fields related to contemporary music. With a special focus on the articulation between musical practices and research activities, whether theoretical or practice-based, NCMM aims to respond to the current challenges of contemporary music in its artistic and research practices, providing a platform for proposing, discussing and disseminating knowledge in a variety of fields.

Each edition will focus on a special main subject, but NCMM conference comprises a set of permanent topics related to contemporary music studies and practices.

    1. Musical Composition Practices, Performance and Reception:
      1. Composition techniques and technologies, including new instruments and unconventional tools and means.
      2. Real-time composition and interactive music, including live coding, electronic, interactive and computer music.
      3. Collaborative composition, free improvisations and open composition.
      4. Practice-based research in music, including composition, performance and collaborative musical activities.
    2. Music History, Theory and Analysis:
      1. What challenges does contemporary music present for musical analysis and history?
      2. What new paradigms, theories and techniques are emerging in contemporary music?
      3. What is, or should be, the balance between theory and practice in musicological methodologies, and what should it be?
      4. Does contemporary music require new techniques, methodologies and specifically designed tools, or are existing ones sufficient?
    3. Philosophy of Music and Aesthetics:
      1. Which philosophical perspectives can be applied to analyse the aesthetic and technical transformations in contemporary music?
      2. What insights can be gained from the epistemological, semiotic, and phenomenological studies of contemporary music?
    4. Musicology, Intertextuality and Authenticity:
      1. How should intertextuality and authenticity be discussed in the context of contemporary music, and what issues should be considered?
      2. What are the most appropriate critical, systematic and empirical musicological methodologies and practices for contemporary music?
    5. Auditory Perception and Cognition:
      1. Issues in music cognition, semiotics and the experience of contemporary music.
      2. Exploring the relationship between the composer’s intentions and the perceptual experience of music.
    6. Musical Sound Transcription, Representation and Notation:
      1. What new questions does contemporary music raise regarding transcription, representation and notation?
      2. How can different musical sound representations become tools for artistic creation and research?
      3. What are the new tools and methods for the transcription and representation of sound?
    7. Sound Technologies and the Music Industry:
      1. Genres and stylistic diversity.
      2. The influence of industry and technology on musical aesthetics.
      3. Broadcasting and sampling: repetition and variation as pathways to creating a musical hit.
      4. The relationship between popular music and other contemporary arts.
      5. Musical issues arising from Internet communities, collaborative compositions, and telematics.
    8. Music and Image:
      1. What are the implications of music and “moving images” in TV, cinema, the Internet, and other forms of multimedia?
      2. What challenges does musicology face in the context of music for video games?
    9. Sound Art, Installations and Exhibitions:
      1. What is the appropriate musicological discourse for music outside the concert hall?
      2. How should sound art and music/sound installations be studied in a musicological context?
      3. What is the role of music in museum exhibitions?
    10. Soundscape and Sound Ecology:
      1. How should soundscapes and sound ecology be discussed within a musical context?
      2. How can virtual auditory spaces be created, sound ecology be considered, and sonification be employed?
    11. Documentation and Preservation of Musical Heritage:
      1. What challenges exist in preserving and documenting contemporary musical works?
      2. How and why is the performability of some contemporary musical works challenging and occasionally not viable?
    12. Music and emergent cultures and societies, cultural heritage, and inclusive societies:
      1. Anthropology, cultural and cross-cultural studies in contemporary music.
      2. Issues of diversity, plurality, multicultural resources, hybridisation, and local music in a globalised world.
      3. What problems arise concerning music criticism, and the sociology of music and culture?