In Spring 2025, the Organology Study Group of the American Musicological Society held our first Virtual Organology Discussion Groups, starting with two topical panels followed by Q&A and discussion. These Zoom sessions were envisioned as a means to link scholars who center musical instruments in their work, providing opportunities for junior scholars to interact with leading members of the field, and a way for “lone organologists” to engage with interlocutors outside their home institutions.
Our next session will be:
Organology Office Hours
Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 10:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM MT / 12:00 PM CT / 1:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM BST / 7:00 PM CET
This student work session will feature three students with work-in-progress who will briefly pitch their project and its challenges to a panel of scholars, followed by a discussion about next steps and suggestions. Our panelist mentors for this novel session format are:
- Emily Dolan, Professor of Music, Brown University
- Edmond Johnson, Senior Director of Advising, Affiliated Faculty in Music History, Occidental College
Our first two sessions were:
Fictophones: Exploring Imaginary Instruments (Video Recording)
Thursday, February 12th, 2026 11:00 AM PT / 12:00 PM MT / 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM ET
- Deirdre Loughridge, Professor of Music, Northeastern University
- Thomas Patteson, Lecturer of Music, University of Pennsylvania
“At the Museum”: Working with Instrument Collections (Video Recording)
Friday, April 24th, 2026 10:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM MT / 12:00 PM CT / 1:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM BST / 7:00 PM CET
- Emanuele Marconi, Director of the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung
- Jonathan Santa Maria Bouquet, Senior Conservator of the Heritage Collections of the University of Edinburgh
- Robert Bigio, Flute Maker and Scholar
- Cassandre Balosso-Bardin, Assistant Professor of Cultural Musicology, University of Leuven
Zoom links will be distributed in advance of each session via the OSG newsletter (sign up at the bottom of the page).
You can access video recordings of last year’s panel sessions below:
Careers in Organology (Video Recording)
Tuesday, February 4th, 2025 12:00 PM MT / 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM ET
- Eliot Bates, Associate Professor of Music & Head of Ethnomusicology, CUNY Graduate Center
- Bradley Strauchen-Scherer, Curator, Department of Musical Instruments, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Sebastian Kirsch, Director, Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
- Boaz Berney, Historical Flute Maker, Montréal, Canada
Pedagogy & Outreach (Video Recording)
Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 11:00 AM MT / 12:00 PM CT / 1:00 PM ET
- Emily Dolan, Professor of Music, Chair of Music, Brown University
- Sarah Deters, Curator, St Cecilia’s Hall Concert Room & Music Museum, University of Edinburgh
- Lidia Chang, Assistant Professor of Music, Colorado College
The panelists (as well as Arnold Myers) have shared syllabi and course overviews from their own teaching. They can be accessed here.