Welcome to the Major Music Project Conference 2025.
The one-day, student-led MMP conference is part of the learning & teaching activities of the fourth-year MUS10105 Major Music Project undergraduate module offered at Edinburgh Napier University, School of Arts and Creative Industries. The purpose of this student-led event is to act as an opportunity for our 4th year BA Music students to present their final year dissertations and practice-led research projects work-in-progress, and to share their research processes and findings with their peers and the extended academic community.
“Mycelium is an immune system protecting habitats by nourishing a diverse succession of collaborating organisms that are continuously exchanging resources and information. Within these life-giving networks – just one cell wall thick – comes the power to steer entire ecosystems on their evolutionary path.” (Stamets, 2024)
The theme of the 2025 MMP Conference is ‘Dialogue’. In thinking about dialogue, we draw inspiration from the metaphor of mycelium. Just as mycelium connects and nourishes diverse organisms, facilitating the exchange of nutrients and information across ecosystems, dialogue in research fosters the exchange of ideas, perspectives, and knowledge. These interactions, whether subtle or overt, influence the trajectory of research, driving interdisciplinary development and growth within academic fields.
We invite participants to reflect and explore these subtle and layered interactions in their own research, and to consider how various forms of dialogue — such as academic lineage (existing dialogue), interdisciplinary or intersectional exchanges, and metacognition (internal dialogues) — nourish and contribute to the ongoing development of their research work.
Participants may also consider more specific forms of dialogue, such as non-verbal interactions between performers in live settings, collaborations among artists across mediums, or broader conversations on the role of art in research. Artistic research, in particular — a field whose identity is in constant negotiation within the academic community (Jullander, 2016) — often embodies dialogue, as it navigates between disciplines, methodologies, scholarly study, and creative practice.
To this end, the aim of the 2025 MMP one-day conference is to exemplify the power of dialogue by providing a platform for presenters to share, critique, strengthen, and cherish their work through mutual exchange and peer/lecturer feedback, ultimately sparking new insights that will nourish, nurture, and guide their Major Music Project research journeys.
Conference Date & Venues: Tuesday 18 March 2025 — Rooms G20, G21, G23 Merchiston Campus, Edinburgh Napier University.
References
Jullander, Sverker. 2016. “Introduction: Creating Dialogues on Artistic Research.” Svensk Tidskrift för Musikforskning 95: 11. Available at: https://ltu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A975834&dswid=8407
Stamets, Paul. 2024. “The Mycelium Network Connects Us All.” Fungi Perfecti. Available at: https://fungi.com/blogs/articles/the-mycelium-network-connects-us-all
