The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Composition [research group]
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RESIDENCY PROGRAM FOR COMPOSERS
[October 2026 – June 2027]
The New Lexicon is an international research residency devoted to advancing philosophy of music composition as a rigorous field of inquiry. It convenes composers who approach composition not only as the production of musical works, but also as a mode of thought through which musical knowledge, value, agency, experience, and possibility may be generated, examined, contested, and reformulated.
Across four online seminars and a culminating public residency, participants will articulate the philosophical premises of their practices, develop projects through critical exchange, and contribute to a shared yet plural vocabulary for thinking musical composition anew.
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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 15, 2026
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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.
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RESIDENCY OVERVIEW
The New Lexicon is an international research residency dedicated to advancing philosophy of music composition as a rigorous field of inquiry. It convenes composers who understand composition not only as the production of musical works, but also as a mode of thought: a practice through which musical knowledge, value, agency, experience, and possibility may be generated, examined, tested, contested, and reformulated.
Across four online seminars and a culminating public residency, participants will articulate the philosophical premises of their practices, develop compositions and research projects through sustained critical dialogue, and contribute to a shared yet plural vocabulary for thinking composition anew. The programme offers a setting in which compositional decisions can be considered not only in terms of technique, style, or effectiveness, but also in relation to the concepts, assumptions, forms of knowledge, and structures of value they enact.
The residency is intended for composers whose work raises questions that cannot be exhausted by technical discussion alone. These questions may concern the identity of the musical work; the status of form and material; the relations among notation, sound, performance, and listening; the distribution of authorship and agency; the role of instruments, media, software, and institutions; or the aesthetic, ethical, social, and political conditions within which composition takes place. Participants need not align themselves with any philosophical tradition or compositional orientation. What matters is a willingness to examine the premises of their practice, submit its assumptions to collective inquiry, and engage with perspectives different from their own.
The New Lexicon is neither a conventional composition workshop nor a seminar in which an established philosophical system is applied to musical works. It is a practice-based research environment in which composition and philosophy are placed in reciprocal relation. Philosophical inquiry offers methods for clarifying concepts, testing claims, distinguishing problems, and situating practices historically. Composition, in turn, is approached as a distinctive form of inquiry capable of producing concepts, experiences, and forms of understanding that may exceed or transform 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
OVERVIEW
RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
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