The Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting
Virtual
February 20–21, 2026
The Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic is excited to announce a call for papers for its next annual meeting, which is a virtual conference taking place February 20–21, 2026. All papers and addresses for this conference will be presented in a live, online format.
We invite proposals for presentations in one of two formats:
1. Ten-minute work-in-progress presentations. These presentations are expected to ask questions and indicate preliminary findings rather than definitive conclusions. A ten-minute presentation provides an opportunity to solicit feedback from colleagues on new research avenues, and will be followed by 5 minutes of Q&A.
2. Twenty-minute presentations. These are standard scholarly presentations that will be followed by ten minutes of Q&A.
Submission Procedures and Deadline
- Proposals should be submitted online via the online portal.
- The submission form asks for:
- Author information—your name (as you’d like it to appear on the program), email address, and institutional affiliation (if applicable)
- Title of your presentation
- Whether you propose a short work-in-progress presentation (ten minutes) or a standard presentation (20 minutes).
- Whether you have student status and should be considered for the Dorothy Payne Award for best student paper. For the purposes of this award, student status ends with the receipt of a terminal degree or employment in a full-time position. Previous winners of the Dorothy Payne Award are not eligible. Papers co-authored with a faculty member are not eligible.
- Demographic information (optional).
- Deadline for submissions: 11:59 PM on October 31, 2025.
- Proposal authors will be notified of the committee’s decision by January 2, 2026.
Rules for Proposals
- New research: The Program Committee invites proposals on any topic related to music theory, as long as the work has not been published in peer-reviewed publications (print or electronic) and has not been presented at an annual conference of the SMT, AMS, CMS, SEM, or SAM.
- Works-in-progress: The Program Committee especially invites proposals for non-standard 10-minute presentations.
- Anonymity: No information that identifies the author(s) or their institutional affiliation should appear in the proposal or abstract (including the filename).
- Word limit: Proposals should not exceed 500 words. The committee acknowledges that proposals for 10-minute presentations may not need the full 500 words.
- Formatting: Proposals should be double-spaced in a 12-point font, followed by up to four pages of supplementary materials (not included in the word limit).
- Supplementary materials: Successful proposals typically include appended supplementary materials (such as musical examples, diagrams, hyperlinks, and selected bibliography) as necessary to substantiate an argument, demonstrate results, or clarify the proposal’s relationship to prior scholarship.
- The examples may include text annotations.
- Texts that are themselves analytical objects, such as quotations from treatises, archival documents, or translations, are also acceptable.
- Any text in the supplementary examples and captions should serve only to illuminate arguments already present in the 500-word proposal and should not introduce new examples, explanations, or evidence.
- Supplementary materials must not exceed four pages.
- File type: Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF document.
- Number of proposals: Please note that no more than two proposals per person will be considered, with the understanding that only one, if any, will be accepted. Co-authored talks will count as a second proposal.
- Membership of MTSMA: Those who present at the conference must be members in good standing of MTSMA
Dorothy Payne Award
The Dorothy Payne Award is given each year for the best student paper.
For the purposes of this award, student status ends with the receipt of a terminal degree or employment in a full-time position.
Previous winners of the Dorothy Payne Award are not eligible.
Keynote Speaker and Workshop Leader
Dr. Kimberly Goddard Loeffert and Dr. John Peterson will jointly give the keynote address. All conference attendees are encouraged to attend.
Program Committee
- Eugene Montague, chair (George Washington University)
- Jennifer Campbell (University of Kentucky)
- Mark Micchelli (West Virginia University)
- Judith Ofcarcik (James Madison University)
- Michael Puri (University of Virginia)
- Kristen Wallentinsen (Rutgers University)
Questions should be addressed to Eugene Montague, Program Committee Chair.
