The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Journalism [research group]
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PROGRAMME FORMAT
Stage I | Articulation and Presentation | November 2026
Stage I consists of two online seminars devoted to presenting and critically articulating participants’ practices, current projects, and principal research questions. Each participant or group presents work in a form appropriate to the project: published articles, drafts, reviews, essays, interviews, profiles, reportage, broadcasts, podcasts, audiovisual pieces, editorial proposals, archival materials, research notes, data, or other documentation.
The purpose is not to demand a completed theoretical position, but to make the operative questions of each practice visible. Participants will identify the concepts on which their work depends, the publics it addresses or imagines, the methods through which it establishes knowledge, and the ethical, aesthetic, and editorial stakes it carries. Discussion will consider relations between observation and interpretation, individual voice and institutional framing, musical experience and linguistic form, and a project’s internal logic and wider conditions of publication.
Moderated peer response will help participants clarify unstable terms, distinguish productive questions from premature conclusions, and identify lines of inquiry that can advance the work. By the end of Stage I, each participant will have established a provisional account of their practice’s philosophical premises and a focused set of questions for further development.
Stage II | Critical Inquiry and Development | February 2027
Stage II consists of two online seminars devoted to collective inquiry into the grounds, methods, ethics, scope, and public functions of music journalism. Moving between shared questions and individual projects, the group will examine what journalistic practices do, what forms of knowledge and value they produce, which responsibilities follow from their influence, and how the field might be reimagined under changing cultural and technological conditions.
Inquiry may encompass the identity of the journalistic object; what can be known through listening, interviewing, observation, research, and participation; the grounds of description, interpretation, judgement, and taste; responsibilities concerning representation, consent, harm, and conflicts of interest; the effects of media form, data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence; and institutional questions concerning editing, commissioning, access, legitimacy, labour, ownership, and expertise.
Participants will develop articles, essays, audio or audiovisual work, editorial models, and research through sustained discussion. The purpose is not to force projects into conventional academic formats or replace expressive writing with theoretical vocabulary, but to strengthen conceptual precision, methodological coherence, ethical awareness, and communicability. Each participant will establish a trajectory for further work before the public residency.
Stage III | Public Presentation and Exchange | June 2027
The programme culminates in research presentations, lectures, readings, and public discussions at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia. Participants will present the questions, methods, propositions, and outcomes of their research in forms appropriate to their practices.
Public presentation is understood as a further stage of inquiry rather than a report on completed results. It offers an opportunity to test arguments, stage acts of criticism, encounter new responses, refine language, and consider how journalistic research changes in a shared discursive space.
The Bled residency creates a concentrated setting for exchange among journalists, composers, performers, researchers, editors, and audiences. It enables participants to situate their projects within broader debates, develop lasting relationships, and contribute to an international discourse on the conditions, responsibilities, and possibilities of music journalism 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 JOURNALISM
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