Organised Sound Issue 32/2 Call for Submissions: Sonic Art and the Future of Education - Cross-disciplinary perspectives

[Leigh Landy]

ORGANISED SOUND

 

Call for Submissions – Volume 32, Number 2

Thematic Issue Title: Sonic Art and the Future of Education: Cross-disciplinary perspectives

Date of Publication: August 2027

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Issue co-ordinators: David Holland (d.w.h...@ucl.ac.uk) and Ross Purves (r.pu...@ucl.ac.uk)

Deadline for submission: 15 September 2026

 

Sonic Art and the Future of Education: Cross-disciplinary perspectives

 

Since the 1960s there has been an ongoing relationship between the sonic arts and education. This is evident in the work of educators and composers such as R. Murray Schafer in Canada and Trevor Wishart in the UK, who were influential as community artists working on community-based music initiatives in and outside schools. More recently in the UK, there has been important research at De Montfort University around introducing sound-based music into schools. As also evidenced by a recent issue on radical education in electronic music (issue 29/2), such projects often involve innovative technology and approaches to teaching that influence practice in formal educational contexts while also highlighting social, economic and cultural issues related to inclusion (or lack thereof) in conventional music education.

 

This thematic issue seeks to explore how partnerships and relationships between sonic artists and educators (in both formal and informal contexts) are currently developing and asks: what contribution could sonic arts practices make, or what role could they play, in education in the future?  As lines between disciplines become more blurred, what could sonic arts practices offer and contribute to a variety of future curricula? The skills that are needed for being a sonic artist can be applied across multiple disciplines, for example as a foley artist or as a sound designer for computer games; these creative areas do not necessarily fit or align with the music curriculum currently, but could these sonic skills cross curriculum boundaries and broaden the sense of what it means to be a 21^st century musician or sonic artist and the subject’s potential societal impact?

 

This issue seeks to explore how skills, innovation and creativity in the field of sonic arts can influence or enhance the future of education, not just in music but across a broad horizon of subject areas. Furthermore, in a field that has traditionally been dominated by white, male, middle class composers, can sonic arts education offer a more inclusive and democratic alternative to traditional approaches to music education? One of the areas that is likely to become more important and more contested in education as AI develops will be creativity. Many of the past projects run by sonic artists in education have emphasised creativity, but in the future will the creative skills that are central to composing sonic art become redundant or will they flourish? Additionally, with a resurgence in interest in analogue tools, could this sort of approach offer a welcome relief from the increasingly dominant and homogenous world of digital music making? Or what could a synthesis of digital and analogue approaches offer across a curriculum that emphasises STEM? Could this help the curriculum develop more towards a STEAM approach? Despite subject divisions that are reinforced by current political support for a knowledge-based curriculum, there is much discussion around the blurring of these divisions through cross-disciplinary partnerships. This reflects the future need for an education that fosters creativity and making across the curriculum. This could be a curriculum that understands the need for creative scientists, as well as for artists who understand the possibilities and the opportunities afforded by new technologies.

 

 

Potential topics:

Submissions may engage with, but are not limited to, the following topics in relation to sonic arts and education:

 

• Collaboration
• Community-based initiatives involving the sonic arts that point to future directions in music education
• Innovative approaches to pedagogy using sonic art
• Sonic creativity and its role in education
• Acoustic ecology and the future of education
• Cross-disciplinary partnerships involving sonic arts in educational contexts
• Sonic arts and the STEAM curriculum
• Teacher education involving sonic arts projects
• Gender in sound and/or music education
• Democracy and inclusion in sound and/or music education
• The evolution of assessment in sound and/or music education
• Ownership and authenticity in sound and/or music education
• Extended reality (VR/AR/MR) in sound and/or music education

Furthermore, as always, submissions unrelated to the theme but relevant to the journal’s focus areas are always welcome.

Please note that Organised Sound seeks issue-driven submissions relevant to the journal’s readership. It does not seek artists’ statements or work/project descriptions without an underlying central question and broad contextualisation.

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SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15 September 2026

 

SUBMISSION FORMAT:

 

Notes for Contributors including how to submit on Scholar One and further details can be obtained from the inside back cover of published issues of Organised Sound or at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/organised-sound/information/author-instructions/preparing-your-materials.

 

General queries should be sent to: o...@dmu.ac.uk, not to the guest editor.

Accepted articles will be published online via FirstView after copy editing prior to the full issue’s publication.

Editor: Leigh Landy; Associate Editor: James Andean

Founding Editors: Ross Kirk, Tony Myatt and Richard Orton†

Regional Editors: Liu Yen-Ling (Annie), Dugal McKinnon, Raúl Minsburg, Jøran Rudi, Margaret Schedel, Barry Truax

International Editorial Board: Miriam Akkermann, Marc Battier, Manuella Blackburn, Brian Bridges, Alessandro Cipriani, Ricardo Dal Farra, Simon Emmerson, Kenneth Fields, Rajmil Fischman, Kerry Hagan, Eduardo Miranda, Garth Paine, Mary Simoni, Martin Supper, Daniel Teruggi, Ian Whalley, David Worrall, Lonce Wyse