The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Composition [research group]
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PROGRAMME FORMAT
Stage I | Articulation and Presentation | October 2026
Stage I consists of two online seminars devoted to the presentation and critical articulation of participants’ practices, current projects, and principal research questions. Each participant or group presents work in a form appropriate to the project: scores, sketches, recordings, texts, diagrams, technological systems, performances, portfolios, research materials, or other documentation.
The purpose of this stage is not to demand a completed theoretical position, but to render the operative questions of each practice visible. Participants will be invited to identify the concepts on which their work depends, the problems it seeks to address, the methods through which it proceeds, and the artistic stakes it carries. Discussion will attend to the relations between stated intentions and compositional procedures, conceptual propositions and material decisions, and the internal logic of a project and the wider contexts through which it becomes intelligible.
Moderated peer response will help participants distinguish productive questions from premature closure, clarify terms that remain unstable or ambiguous, and identify lines of inquiry that can advance the work. By the end of Stage I, each participant will have established a provisional account of the philosophical premises of their practice and a focused set of questions for further development.
Stage II | Critical Inquiry and Development | January 2026
Stage II consists of two online seminars devoted to collective inquiry into the grounds, methods, scope, and functions of philosophy of music composition. The seminars will move between shared questions and the specific demands of participants’ projects. Rather than treating the field as a pre-existing discipline with fixed boundaries, the group will examine what such a field might need to become, which problems it should address, and which methods can respond to the realities of contemporary compositional practice.
Inquiry may encompass ontological questions concerning the identity and modes of existence of musical works; epistemological questions concerning what composition knows and how such knowledge is produced; aesthetic questions concerning form, judgement, experience, and value; ethical questions concerning relation, responsibility, and consequence; technological questions concerning mediation and agency; institutional questions concerning legitimation, access, and authority; and political questions concerning the conditions under which music is produced, circulated, and heard.
Participants will develop their compositions, texts, and artistic research projects through sustained discussion and critical reflection. The purpose is not to force every project into a conventional academic format, but to strengthen its conceptual precision, methodological coherence, and communicability. Each participant will formulate provisional trajectories for further artistic and research development, including questions to be tested, concepts to be refined, materials to be reconsidered, and forms of presentation to be developed before the public residency.
Stage III | Public Presentation and Exchange | June 2027
The programme culminates in research presentations, lectures, and public discussions at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia. This stage brings the work developed through the online seminars into an artistic and intellectual context.
Participants will present the questions, methods, propositions, and outcomes of their research in forms appropriate to their practices. The emphasis is not confined to reporting completed results. Public presentation is understood as a further stage of inquiry: an opportunity to test arguments, encounter new responses, refine language, and consider how compositional research is transformed when it enters a shared discursive space.
The Bled residency creates a concentrated setting for exchange among composers, researchers, performers, and audiences. It enables participants to situate their projects in relation to broader debates, develop lasting intellectual and professional relationships, and contribute to an international discourse on the conditions and possibilities of composition today.
DATES
MENTORS
PROGRAMME FORMAT
RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
WHO THE PROGRAMME ADDRESSES
TOWARDS MULTIPLE PHILOSOPHIES OF COMPOSITION
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