摘要：The First International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology was
held at the University of Graz on 14th and 15th November 2008, and was
designed as a platform for students from the various subdisciplines of
systematic musicology to gain exposure to their colleagues’ research (as well
as presenting their own) in a friendly and supportive environment. Never
before had such a student conference on systematic musicology taken place,
and the University of Graz assumed an appropriate place for such an
endeavour when the research history of the music department is considered
alongside the research interests of Professor Richard Parncutt, who codirected
the conference. British Postgraduate Musicology is committed to
upholding student-led initiatives, and, having learned in co-director Manuela
Marin’s opening speech that the general ideas of student conferences in
Austria were relatively rare, it was particularly gratifying to be a part of such a
rigorously organised conference from the off. The conference was designed to
expose future scholars to the conference procedures early in their careers, and
provided the attendees with a valuable intellectual and social programme that
would grant them an opportunity to meet with colleagues with similar
research interests. The organisers ostensibly received numerous high-quality
responses to the international call for papers, which were all subjected to a
double-blind, peer-review procedure before their acceptance (this is just one
example of the rigorous review and evaluation procedures that were so
exemplarily deployed throughout). It seemed quite natural, therefore, that
BPM could demonstrate our support to such a positive venture that so overtly
contributed to the postgraduate community, by publishing a selection of
articles that were submitted for the proceedings of the conference in this
special issue.
