The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Musical Ideas [research group]
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RESIDENCY PROGRAMME FOR MUSICIANS AND MUSICOLOGISTS
[November 2026 – June 2027]
The New Lexicon is an international research residency devoted to the critical investigation, articulation, and development of musical ideas as objects, processes, and forms of thought. It convenes musicians and musicologists interested in how ideas arise through composing, performing, listening, analysis, notation, technology, memory, and cultural exchange.
Across four online seminars and a culminating public residency, participants will examine the concepts that organize their musical thinking, develop artistic and research projects through dialogue, and contribute to a plural vocabulary for understanding how musical ideas are formed, transformed, communicated, and contested.
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PROGRAM AT A GLANCE
Program period: October 2026–June 2027
Format: Four online seminars followed by an on-site festival phase
On-site location: Bled, Slovenia (EU)
Public presentation: Seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week
Application deadline: September 30, 2026
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FORMAT
Stage I | Articulation and Presentation | November 9, 10, 2026
Two online seminars introduce participants’ projects, musical materials, and research questions, with attention to the ideas they propose, inherit, discover, or place under examination.
Stage II | Critical Inquiry and Development | February 17, 18, 2027
Two online seminars investigate the origins, forms, meanings, and functions of musical ideas while establishing trajectories for artistic, analytical, and research development.
Stage III | Public Presentation and Exchange | June 14-25, 2027
Participants present research, lectures, demonstrations, and discussions at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia.
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RESIDENCY OVERVIEW
The New Lexicon is an international research residency dedicated to the critical investigation, articulation, and development of musical ideas as objects, processes, and forms of thought. It brings together musicians and musicologists interested in how ideas arise through composing, performing, improvising, listening, analysis, notation, technology, memory, and cultural exchange.
Across four online seminars and a culminating public residency, participants will examine the concepts that organize their musical thinking, develop artistic and research projects through sustained dialogue, and contribute to a shared yet plural vocabulary for understanding how musical ideas are formed, transformed, communicated, interpreted, and contested. The programme offers a setting in which an idea can be considered not only as the content of an individual mind or the premise of a finished work, but also as something that may emerge through sound, bodily action, technical media, historical convention, collaborative practice, or acts of listening.
The residency is addressed to students whose projects raise questions that cannot be resolved by technical description or historical information alone. Such questions may concern what makes an idea musical; whether ideas precede works or arise within them; how a thought becomes sound, notation, gesture, form, or experience; how ideas persist while their realizations change; and how musical concepts are shaped by particular languages, institutions, technologies, and histories. Participants need not subscribe to a specific philosophical tradition, analytical method, or artistic orientation. What matters is a willingness to identify assumptions, test interpretations, and engage seriously with positions different from one’s own.
The New Lexicon is neither a conventional music workshop nor a philosophy course in which established theories are simply applied to musical examples. It is a practice-based research environment in which musical activity and philosophical inquiry enter into reciprocal relation. Philosophy provides methods for clarifying concepts, distinguishing problems, testing claims, and examining historical conditions. Music, in turn, is approached as a domain capable of generating concepts, relations, and forms of understanding that may challenge or exceed existing theoretical language.
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MENTORS
Dr. Alastair White
Urban Megušar, Double M.Mus.
Dr. Niki Zohdi
Dr. Dré A. Hočevar
COORDINATOR
Brina Kren
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