All attend!: the Fifth International Conference on Minimalist Music, taking place at the University of Turku and the Sibelius Academy in Finland this September, has finally announced its call for papers. They will be focusing on “the relevance of the minimalist style in the 21st century,” and are looking for papers on the core minimalist repertory but also postminimalism, Nordic minimalism, the migration of the style among genres, minimalism in popular culture, and so on. The keynote speakers will be scholars Robert Fink and Jelena Novak. This is the biennial event I plan my life around; I wouldn’t miss it if I had to get there by goat cart. And I was going to submit my paper I’ve started on “Elodie Lauten as Improviser,” for which I’ve been transcribing some of her piano performances, but they’ve made me guest composer for the conference. I’m not sure why, but I could not possibly be more deeply honored. It was meeting my fellow founding musicologists of the Society for Minimalist Music in 2007 that renewed my interest in writing books and induced me to begin referring to myself as a musicologist. Now that the Ivesian musicologists think they can make me fetch their drinks and shine their shoes, I’ve gone back to calling myself a composer who writes books, but I will be in Helsinki without fail.
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
