Research conferences, festivals, and symposia
Many of the international conferences and symposia we host in the Music department at Manchester are linked closely to our researchers' own projects, or form part of their large-scale funded projects.
As part of our practice-based research, we hold large biannual festivals of music and sound using new technology and media, hosted by Manchester Theatre in Sound (MANTIS).
We are also regular co-hosts of the biennial New Music Northwest annual festival of contemporary composition, held in conjunction with the Royal Northern College of Music. This provides an important platform for the performance of new works by our composition staff and research students.
MANTIS Festival
Focused on two weekend festivals each year, MANTIS presents concerts of music and sound, featuring compositions and performances enhanced by the use of new technology and digital media.
International Manchester Beethoven research symposia
Exploring the life and works of Beethoven.
Recent Events
A selection of our recent events can be found below:
Manchester Music Analysis Conference 2025 (McrMAC)![]()
The Society for Music Analysis's annual international conference was hosted by the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, University of Manchester, and the Royal Northern College of Music from 14 to 16 July 2025.
The conference was preceded by a Student Study Day organised by the Formal Theory Study Group with workshops run by the conference keynote speakers and a Formal Dialogues Panel on Sibelius's Sixth Symphony.
Find out more about this event.
Intercultural musicking: Ensemble performance, (inter)cultural encounters, and personal/professional transformations
We invite you to join us for a free one-day online event on Thursday, 15 April 2021, 2.00–6.00pm, exploring the world of intercultural musicking with researcher-practitioners Caroline Bithell, Robert Szymanek, Richard Fay and Dan Mawson, together with student members of the University's gamelan and klezmer ensembles. These ensembles serve as living laboratories for investigating the dynamics of encountering new cultural and musical worlds through learning to perform with others in unfamiliar styles and/or on 'new' instruments. Under the umbrella of the Intercultural Musicking group hosted by the department, we share insights into these particular musical adventures within the broader framework of research into the pedagogy, politics and aesthetics of intercultural music-making.
The event is divided into two complementary parts:
- Show-and-Tell: Encounters and Transformations (2–4pm)
- Research Forum: Themes, Issues and Explorations (4.30–6pm)
- Full details and Zoom link (PDF, 50KB)
Beyond the avant-garde? Rethinking the vanguard in British music since 1970
A one-day online symposium investigating different perspectives on how the history and historiography of 'vanguard music' in the UK since 1970 can be traced, documented and rethought will be jointly hosted by the University of Manchester Music Department's States of Flux Research Group and by Goldsmiths, University of London on 25 June 2021.
Shakespeare and music conference: 10–11 December 2020
The inaugural conference of the Shakespeare and Music Study Group was jointly hosted by the Universities of Manchester and Huddersfield in an online event aiming to foster research on music in Shakespeare's time, and music inspired by his works. It featured keynote addresses by Professor Ross Duffin (Case Western Reserve University) and by Claire van Kampen (composer and director for the Globe Theatre) as well as the premiere of John Casken's The Shackled King, a 'music drama' derived from Shakespeare's King Lear, with Sir John Tomlinson CBE in the title role and Rozanna Madylus (mezzo-soprano) as Cordelia, Goneril, Regan and The Fool.
Mieczyslaw Weinberg: East and West, 24–27 January 2019
A major international conference celebrating the beginning of Weinberg's centenary year. It brought together scholars and practitioners from Russia, Belarus, Poland, Sweden, Germany, France, Australia, the UK and the US, and featured Gidon Kremer as Guest of Honour.
The Quatuor Danel gave seven concerts as part of the symposium, with a further two concerts also incorporated into the event. The conference was co-sponsored by the British Academy and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw.
EASTN-DC, 25–30 June 2018
A week of concerts and events exploring digital creativity as part of the European Art – Science –Technology Network for Digital Creativity funded by the Culture Program of the European Union.
New music north west, 13–18 November 2017
The 2017 NMNW festival comprised six days of concerts co-organised with the RNCM, and hosted in the Martin Harris Centre and around Manchester. It featured the music of invited composer Mark Anthony Turnage alongside Manchester composers, performed by Manchester ensembles.
The festival included concerts by MANTIS, Trio Atem, Psappha, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ebonit Saxophone Quartet and student ensembles from the University and the RNCM.
It included pieces by University composers David Berezan, Philip Grange, Kevin Malone, Camden Reeves, Richard Whalley and Nina Whiteman, as well as the some of the University's most promising student composers.
RMA research students' study day: Music and Space, 28 October 2017
A study day designed to bring together composers, musicologists and performers with a shared interest in exploring the concept of space in music. It was hosted alongside the MANTIS festival.
Sines and squares festival, 18–20 November 2016
This was the second three-day celebration of the recent resurgence of analogue and modular synthesisers. It featured some of the most renowned UK and international performers, composers, lecturers and designers working with analogue and modular systems.
It mixed live and fixed-media concerts featuring the MANTIS system with conference papers and keynotes, plus theoretical 'Patchbay' sessions (combining formal papers with performances), and workshops.
Michael Finnissy: Dialogues, 17 November 2016
A one-day symposium co-hosted by the Universities of Huddersfield and Manchester, held at Heritage Quay, Huddersfield. The event focused on the music of Michael Finnissy, as viewed through the lens of performance and collaboration.
In addition to presentations from six invited speakers, it included a lunchtime recital and a display of concert programmes from the British Music Collection.
New music north west, 22–29 January 2016
This was an eight-day multi-event festival co-hosted with the RNCM. The 2016 festival featured invited composer Harrison Birtwistle alongside Manchester composers.
Concerts were performed by Manchester ensembles including the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Psappha, MANTIS, Trio Atem, the Vonnegut Collective, Distractfold, and student ensembles from the University, the RNCM and Chetham's School of Music.
It included the world premiere of Kevin Malone's opera Mysterious 44. There were also compositions by university composers Philip Grange, Gavin Osborn, Camden Reeves and Nina Whiteman, together with some of the University's most promising student composers.
RMA practice as research symposium, 24 June 2015
This event aimed to bring together composers and practice-based researchers to discuss the issues facing those working in these areas in higher education in the modern context of research funding and research assessment.
RMA and British Forum for Ethnomusicology study day: Music, circulation and the public sphere, 11 April 2014
This study day brought together researchers to engage in interdisciplinary discussions about the relationship between music, circulation, and the public sphere.
It was a jointly hosted forum and included contributions by invited speakers Byron Dueck (Open University) and Estelle Joubert (Dalhousie University and University of Oxford).