The IMS Study Group Comparative Perspectives on Genetic Criticism, founded in 2025, invites proposals for its first international conference at the DHI Rome. The conference seeks to take stock of current research questions, methodological approaches, and terminological frameworks in genetic criticism and sketch studies in music, while explicitly exploring their comparative potential across composers, repertoires, and research traditions.
Over the past decades, research on creative processes in music has expanded significantly. This growth, however, has been accompanied by an increasingly heterogeneous and often incompatible terminology. This “genetic-critical Babel” (Grésillon, 1994) impedes the dialogue between projects and research groups even more. The conference therefore deliberately challenges participants to share ideas and experiences toward comparative sketch studies and to foster methodological and terminological exchange by foregrounding comparative perspectives on compositional processes.
International Conference: 16–18 November 2026 at the German Historical Institute in Rome
Conference languages: German, Italian, English, French