The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Education [research group]
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PROGRAMME FORMAT
Stage I | Articulation and Presentation | October 2026
Stage I consists of two online seminars devoted to articulating participants’ projects, contexts, and research questions. Each participant or group will introduce work in a form appropriate to the project: curricula, lesson designs, workshop structures, recordings, reflective texts, case studies, performances, digital platforms, community initiatives, or other documentation.
The purpose is not to demand a complete philosophical position, but to make the operative questions of each practice visible. Participants will identify the ideas of music and education on which their work depends, the learners and communities it addresses, the methods through which it proceeds, and the artistic, ethical, and social stakes it carries. Discussion will attend to relations between stated aims and pedagogical actions, educational values and institutional conditions, and a project’s internal logic and cultural context.
Moderated peer response will help participants distinguish generative questions from premature solutions, clarify unstable or ambiguous terms, and identify lines of inquiry capable of advancing the work. By the end of Stage I, each participant will have developed a provisional account of the philosophical premises of their practice and focused questions for further investigation.
Stage II | Critical Inquiry and Development | January 2027
Stage II consists of two online seminars devoted to collective inquiry into the grounds, purposes, and responsibilities of philosophy of music education. The seminars move between shared questions and the demands of participants’ projects. Rather than treating the field as settled, the group will examine what it must address, which experiences and knowledge it has overlooked, and which methods respond to contemporary educational realities.
Inquiry may encompass ontological questions about what music is within education; epistemological questions about musical knowledge and its acquisition; ethical questions concerning care, authority, freedom, vulnerability, and responsibility; aesthetic questions concerning experience, judgement, repertoire, creativity, and value; political questions concerning access, representation, inclusion, and institutional power; and technological questions concerning mediation, data, automation, platforms, and agency.
Participants will develop curricula, pedagogical experiments, community projects, institutional proposals, texts, artistic research, or other initiatives through sustained discussion and critical reflection. The purpose is not to force every project into a conventional academic format, but to strengthen conceptual precision, methodological coherence, practical responsiveness, and communicability. Each participant will formulate trajectories for development, including assumptions to test, concepts to refine, relationships to reconsider, and forms of public presentation to prepare before the final residency.
Stage III | Public Presentation and Exchange | June 2027
The programme culminates in research presentations, lectures, workshops, and public discussions at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia. This stage brings work developed through the online seminars into a public artistic and educational context.
Participants will present the questions, methods, propositions, and outcomes of their research in forms appropriate to their practices. The emphasis is not limited to completed results. Public presentation is understood as a further educational encounter: an opportunity to test arguments, invite participation, receive new responses, refine language, and examine how ideas change when they move between classrooms, rehearsal rooms, institutions, communities, and public discourse.
The Bled residency creates a concentrated setting for exchange among educators, artists, researchers, performers, students, and audiences. It enables participants to situate their projects within broader debates, develop lasting relationships, and contribute to international discussion about the purposes and possibilities of music education 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 MUSIC EDUCATION
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