The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Musical Ideas [research group]
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PROGRAMME FORMAT
Stage I | Articulation and Presentation | November 2026
Stage I consists of two online seminars devoted to the presentation and critical articulation of participants’ projects, musical materials, and principal research questions. Each participant or group introduces work in a form appropriate to the inquiry: scores, sketches, recordings, performances, analyses, essays, diagrams, archives, software, field materials, listening exercises, or other relevant documentation.
The purpose of this stage is not to demand a complete theory of musical ideas. It is to make visible the questions and assumptions already active within a project. Participants will be invited to identify what they call an idea, where they locate it, how they know that it is present, and by what processes it becomes musically significant. Discussion will attend to the relation between intention and result, between conceptual description and musical experience, and between the internal organization of a project and the cultural or historical contexts through which it can be understood.
Moderated peer response will help participants distinguish productive questions from premature conclusions, clarify unstable terms, and identify lines of inquiry capable of advancing the project. By the end of Stage I, each participant will have established a provisional account of the musical idea at stake, the methods through which it will be examined, and a focused set of questions for further development.
Stage II | Critical Inquiry and Development | February 2027
Stage II consists of two online seminars devoted to collective inquiry into the grounds, forms, histories, and possible functions of musical ideas. The seminars will move between shared philosophical questions and the specific demands of participants’ projects. Rather than treating the musical idea as a self-evident category, the group will examine what different uses of the term imply and which methods are adequate to the variety of musical practices represented.
Inquiry may encompass ontological questions concerning the existence and identity of musical ideas; epistemological questions concerning how they are known, communicated, or justified; aesthetic questions concerning invention, coherence, expression, and value; phenomenological questions concerning perception, memory, expectation, and embodied experience; historical questions concerning changing concepts of musical thought; technological questions concerning mediation and generation; and ethical or political questions concerning ownership, authority, representation, and access.
Participants will develop compositions, performances, analyses, essays, and artistic-research projects through sustained discussion and critical reflection. The aim is not to force every project into one academic form, but to strengthen its conceptual precision, methodological coherence, historical awareness, and communicability. Participants will be encouraged to test whether their chosen materials genuinely support their claims, whether alternative interpretations remain possible, and whether the vocabulary of the project clarifies rather than predetermines what can be heard.
Stage III | Public Presentation and Exchange | June 2027
The programme culminates in research presentations, lectures, demonstrations, and public discussions at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia. This stage brings the work developed through the online seminars into a wider artistic and intellectual context.
Participants will present the questions, methods, propositions, and outcomes of their research in forms suited to their practices. A presentation may combine spoken argument with live or recorded examples, performance, score study, analytical demonstration, listening session, technological experiment, or another relevant format. The emphasis is not solely on reporting completed results. Public presentation is understood as a further stage of inquiry: an opportunity to test claims, encounter new responses, refine language, and observe how a musical idea changes when it is shared with a different audience.
The Bled residency establishes a concentrated setting for exchange among students, composers, performers, researchers, educators, and listeners. It enables participants to situate their projects in relation to wider debates, develop new intellectual and professional connections, and contribute to an international discourse on how music thinks and how musical thought becomes communicable.
DATES
MENTORS
PROGRAMME FORMAT
RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
WHO THE PROGRAMME ADDRESSES
TOWARDS MULTIPLE PHILOSOPHIES OF MUSICAL IDEAS
APPLICATION
APPLICATION FORM AND
PARTICIPATION FEES
The New Lexicon program is produced by .abeceda Institute
.abeceda [Institute for Research in Art, Critical Thought and Philosophy], a public-benefit NGO and non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing contemporary artistic practices and critical inquiry. Through its innovative programmes, .abeceda has gained international recognition as one of the leading platforms for contemporary music and artistic research in the Adriatic region and across Europe: www.abeceda.io