European Electronic Music Higher Education Network: NEXT UP

Many of us know and appreciate the biennial next_generation festival at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany. The ability to network with colleagues and hear the state of our art from the various institutions which take part is priceless. However, I feel a strengthening of the network this represents might be beneficial to us all.

Rather than try to reproduce next_generation, which I'm sure we all hope will continue for many years to come, I propose a new network of higher-education institutions that teach electronic music. We could call this, generically, boringly even, the European Electronic Music Higher Education Network (EEMHEN)¹.

The network would be organised primarily via a mailing list aimed at general discussion but more specifically oriented towards meetings where pairs of institutions meet up (physically) for an exchange of music and ideas. Several pairings would be coordinated, roughly in parallel, each year (or semester) and at that point the individual institutions organise their meetings autonomously with their partners. We could call these meetings next up.

In addition I would include an online meetup for the whole network every semester or every year, so that we can discuss how things are going, how things can be improved, and what issues or successes we're all experiencing.

My idea is to have a two-day slot where one institution hosts another. On both days there are discussions and concerts. The visiting institution would present on day one, the host on day two, whereas the host's concert would be on day one and the visitors' on day two. ²

The discussions would be initiated by 20-30 minute impulse lectures by any student or teacher who wishes to present a topic. We could even coordinate a pool of topics each year/semester and these would be interrogated by all partners at their next meeting.

In addition, included in day two would be a session for the students only and one for the teachers in parallel, so that topics can be freely discussed that may be more relevant (or even sensitive) for the given group. A relevant summary would be presented to the plenum.

A short written summary of each next up provided by the host, in collaboration with the visitors, would be nice to have in an archive on a website.

I've set up an email list to get the discussion started. You can subscribe and unsubscribe as and when you wish, as well as view the archive, by visiting this site: https://www.listserv.dfn.de/sympa/info/elecompeur

As coordinator, I would set up a rotation system. The goal would be that, over the years, and depending upon how many institutions take part, we would eventually get to visit and host every institution in the network. Initially I would propose that getting to know many institutions as quickly as possible would be a priority, so one institution would host another and then visit a third institution the next semester/year, as opposed to one institution hosting another then visiting that institution next.

With, for example, ten institutions we could order the visits as follows. Each number represents an institution, the pairings are separated by commas, and the hosting institution is the first in the pair:

next up 1: 1 2, 3 4, 5 6, 7 8, 9 10
next up 2: 3 1, 4 2, 5 7, 6 9, 8 10
next up 3: 1 4, 2 5, 6 3, 7 10, 9 8
next up 4: 5 1, 2 6, 3 7, 4 8, 10 9
next up 5: 1 6, 7 2, 8 3, 9 4, 5 10
next up 6: 1 7, 2 8, 3 9, 4 10, 6 5
etc.

Michael Edwards | ICEM, Folkwang University of the Arts | February 20th 2025