SCSM ANNUAL MEETING 2027
Yale Institute for Sacred Music
March 4-6

The next annual meeting of the Society of Christian Scholarship in Music will be held at the Yale Institute for Sacred Music, in New Haven, CT.

CONFERENCE DETAILS

The annual meeting of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music will be held at Yale ISM and Divinity School in New Haven, CT, from March 4-6 2027.  The Call for Papers is included below, as well as a shareable PDF version.  More details coming soon.

Membership

Please remember to renew your membership before attending the conference.  You can click the Join/Contribute button at the top to be redirected to that page.  A reduced student membership rate is available.

Call for Papers (click here for a PDF version)

Annual Meeting: March 4–6, 2027, Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, CT
Proposal Deadline: October 1, 2026, 11:59 p.m. CDT

The 2027 annual meeting of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music will take place from Thursday, March 4th, through Saturday, March 6th, at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, CT. Welcoming any topic related to music and Christianity, the program committee invites submissions in the following four categories:

  1. Individual Paper
    • Duration: 25 minutes of presentation + 10 minutes of discussion.
    • Proposal: 350 words maximum. Describe the argument, evidence, and research findings and situate the work in relation to previous scholarship.
  2. Research Poster
    • The program will include a poster session.
    • Proposal: 350 words maximum. Describe the argument, evidence, and research findings and situate the work in relation to previous scholarship.
  3. Lecture-Recital
    • Duration: 1 hour
    • Proposal: 350 words maximum + a list of the repertoire to be performed. Identify approximate timings and performing forces and clearly describe the substance of the lecture component.
  4. Panel
    • Duration: 1 hour and 45 minutes
    • Proposal: One document containing an overview (350 words maximum) followed by proposals for the constituent papers prepared by individual panelists following the guidelines for Individual Papers (350 words maximum each). In the overview, specify the use of time, and summarize the importance of the panel topic and how the papers cohere around it.
    • Note: Panel Proposals will only be considered as a whole, as the session’s coherence is an essential part of the evaluation process.
SUBMISSION

https://forms.gle/b3bnN9iF22yuAnxy6

Proposals must be received through the above form no later than 11:59 p.m. CDT on October 1, 2026, in order to be considered. To assist with the committee’s blind peer review process, please exclude the author’s name from the text, title, and digital tags of the proposal (regardless of category). References to the author’s own work should appear in third person. Only one proposal per author will be considered. Applicants will be notified of the program committee’s decision in November. Please direct questions to the program committee chair, Samantha Inman, at inmans@sfasu.edu.

ABOUT THE SOCIETY
The Society for Christian Scholarship in Music promotes the exploration of connections between Christian faith and the academic study of music. We are a cross-disciplinary society including ethnomusicologists, music theorists, musicologists, scholars of liturgy and of church music, theologians, and practicing church musicians. The Society understands itself as having an ecumenical Christian identity, reflecting the worldwide diversity of Christian traditions. The Society also sees it as vitally important to learn from scholars outside those traditions, and scholars who do not identify as Christian are welcome to join as full members.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The SCSM encourages submissions from current graduate students. Graduate students whose proposals are accepted are eligible to apply for travel assistance from the SCSM Graduate Student Travel Fund. In addition, a $250 prize will be awarded for the best paper presented by a graduate student at the meeting. Application instructions for the travel fund and the paper prize will be provided upon acceptance of the paper for the program and will be posted on the society’s website.

Presenters are expected to deliver their presentations in person, though Zoom presentations will be considered in unusual circumstances. Those interested in delivering papers by Zoom should include a note in the space provided on the submission form, explaining the rationale for virtual presentation.

Presenters are required to be members of the society for the year of the conference. Conference registration is open to all interested persons: undergraduate and graduate students, as well as independent and affiliated scholars.

For more information about the SCSM and previous conferences, see www.scsmusic.org.

Program Committee
Cesar Favila
Samantha M. Inman, chair
Markus Rathey

Keynote Speaker
TBA