International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation
Conference theme: Notation of Electronic Music
The conference will focus on the technologies, applications, affordances, and aesthetic implications of notation, prescription, transcription, and inscription as applied to electronic music in its broadest sense—including, but not limited to, music conceived through electronic, computer, and AI-powered technology; music performed by and with electronic and electronically-augmented instruments; sound- and pitch-based electroacoustic music; music for and with live electronics; experimental and underground electronic music; sound art and sound- and music-adjacent disciplines, powered or mediated by electronic technology; and more. Also, the discourse implicitly encompasses notation for custom-made and non-standard instruments, as well as diverse instrumental and vocal techniques, due to the common issues between the fields.
We aim to foster interdisciplinary discussion and exchange among thinkers and practitioners of all the above disciplines and beyond, through a diversified and pluralistic lens.
Suggested Topics for Contributions
We encourage submissions on—but not limited to—the following topics:
- Software and hardware tools for notation of electronic and experimental music
- Notation-based musicology of electronic and experimental music
- History of notation of electronic and experimental music
- Semiotics, ontology, and epistemology of notation as applied to electronic and experimental music
- Digital, animated, interactive and non-visual notation
- Notation of gestural control and spatialisation
- Notation for sound art, sonification, and musification
- Technologies for music and sound analysis and representation
- AI and machine learning in musical notation
- Live coding
- Computer code as musical notation
- New interfaces for musical notation
- Physical computing and robotics in musical notation
- Generative notational processes and computer-aided composition
- Technology and music theory
- Computational musicology and musical analysis
- Aesthetic and social implications of music notation technologies
- Notation technologies in cross-disciplinary performance arts
- Cognitive and psychological aspects of musical notation
- Technologies for the pedagogy of musical notation
- Technology-enhanced notation for motor-, sensor-, and cognitively divergent musicians and performers
- Technological aspects of decentralisation of Western musical notation
Submission Categories
Submissions may include research papers, workshops, and theoretical-artistic presentations. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the TENOR 2027 scientific or artistic committee, and authors will receive feedback. For all accepted submissions, at least one of the authors is expected to attend the conference and present the work in person.
Papers
Papers must be submitted in full. They must be written in English, formatted according to the LaTeX or Microsoft Word templates, and be 4–8 pages in length. Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings, to be published digitally after the conference. From these proceedings, authors will be invited to consider multimedia expansions or reworkings of their contributions for a future issue of ECHO (www.echo.orpheusinstituut.be).
Workshops
Workshop proposals must include detailed information about the workshop’s topic, methodology, structure and outline; author biographies; and a precise description of the required equipment, both brought by the presenters and expected to be provided. The maximum duration of the workshop is 1 hour. Equipment details may be subject to negotiation with the Conference organisation.
Theoretical-Artistic presentations
Artistic presentations must be linked to a contribution in one of the above categories, in order to articulate the relationship between the artwork and the conference topics. Exceptions may be made if the artwork itself clearly articulates its notational/representational aspects. Artistic presentations may include the following:
- Fixed-media and live-electronics music and sound art, for 2 to 8-channel loudspeaker systems.
- Works for any of the following solo instruments, with or without live or fixed-media electronics: flutes (performer: Helen Bledsoe), clarinet/bass clarinet (performer: Chiara Percivati), synthesizer (performer: Juan Parra Cancino).
- Works for the Decibel ensemble (bass flute, bass clarinet, cello, viola, percussion and electronics): https://decibelnewmusic.com/ — details on the instrumentation will be available shortly.
- Works performed by the authors themselves.
Paper templates and details about the submission procedure will be available shortly on the submissions page of this website.
Important dates
November 14, 2026: Submission deadline
January 21, 2027: Notifications sent, registrations open
February 22, 2027: Camera-ready version deadline
April 4, 2027: Registrations close
April 21–23, 2027: TENOR 2027 Conference
