«Everybody calls me Giorgio»: Moroder across media, arts and communication
Brixen, Faculty of Education, University of Bozen-Bolzano
10-12 September 2026
IASPM Italia + IASPM D-A-CH
Call for papers
Giorgio Moroder’s biographical and professional history is remarkable and quite peculiar: belonging to a linguistic minority, raised in a region culturally and geographically removed from the main centres of the music industry, without any formal musical education, he nonetheless managed to become one of the most innovative and successful musicians on the planet.
This conference will be an opportunity to take a closer look Giorgio Moroder’s role in music and media, as well as broader, interconnected themes such as dance music, studio production, arts entrepreneurship, film music, intermediality, and remix cultures. The conference will also explore cultural heritage, sociolinguistics and migration routes in music and the arts, drawing on Moroder’s history as an artist born and raised in the predominantly Ladin-speaking Val Gardena/Gröden/Gherdëina in South Tyrol, Italy, then professionally matured in Germany and eventually relocated to the United States.
In addition to presentations dealing with various aspects of Moroder’s life and work, we welcome papers that address the context in which he operated or which he affected. In fact, we propose that Moroder and his achievements could serve as a starting point to explore some fundamental changes in the music industry starting at least from the last quarter of the twentieth century.
We invite submission moving from or focusing on Moroder and covering topics such as:
• The role of technology and the redefinition of professional roles in the recording studio.
• Looping, sequencing and synthesizers and the emergence of new musical genres, • particularly in dance music.
• The role of the composer in technology-based music genres.
• Western Art music influences in dance music.
• European music production hubs.
• The imagery and discourse of dance music.
• Dance music and queer culture.
• Dance music, the racial formation of the ‘Black voice’.
• Electronic sound, technology and embodiment.
• Gender politics and hypersexualization of artists.
• The emergence of DJs as performers and mediators.
• Ageing in the club scene.
• Artist aliases.
• The artist as a symbol for a specific kind of music, nation, language, city, etc.
• New models of entrepreneurship in the arts, particularly in music.
• Discothèques, Schlager, electronic music and the roots of Eurodisco.
• The emergence of new actors in the European music industry.
• Cultural appropriation and labour exploitation in the European music industry.
• Hybridisations and remediation between music, film and television in terms of styles, formats, distribution, audience, etc.
• Synergies between music, film, television, and new media.
• Film rescoring and pop aesthetics in the adaptation of archival material.
• Remix cultures and musical works.
• Remembering artists of the past in songs, the press, films, etc.
• Translation and localisation: adapting songs for different national markets.
• Formal, non-formal and informal music education in multilingual and culturally hybrid and trans-national spaces.
• Histories and historiographies centred around important people, musical practices, listening practices, instruments, and materials.
• Ties to and estrangement from one’s homeland: language, heritage, networks.
• The musical branding of sport mega-events.
The conference venue in Moroder’s homeland offers the opportunity to involve local organizations, such as the Department of Ladin Education, Training and Culture, as well as to retrace the career of the artist from Scurcià, Urtijëi, exploring his formative and migratory journey which, especially since the 1960s, has involved many well-known and lesser-known figures in the fields of culture and entertainment. IASPM Italia and IASPM D-A-CH, acting jointly as the organising committee, will create a bridge across the Alps, metaphorically recreating one of those routes.
Keynote speakers: Ewa Mazierska (University of Lancashire); Tavia Nyong’o (Yale University).
Guest panellists: Mark J. Butler (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin); Paul Harkins (Edinburgh Napier University); Julin Lee (Hochschule für Musik und Theater München).
Other special guests and side events will be announced soon.
Important information:
The conference will start at 14:00 on Thursday, 10 September 2026 and will close at 13:00 on Saturday, 12 September 2026.
Please submit your abstract by 15.05.2026 to ECMG26.unibz@gmail.com
Confirmation will be sent by 31.05.2026
Please select the type of contributions (paper, panel, poster) and indicate one or more streams:
• Dance music and club culture
• Music production and technology
• Music for screen
• Archiving, cultural heritage and historiographies
• Music composition between formats, styles and genres
• Sociolinguistic and semiotics
In parallel with the main event, the conference committee will publish a call for contributions for an edited book on the conference topics. The language of publication will be English. The book is expected to be published in 2027.
Registration fees: presenter: 75€ (waged); free (unwaged) || attendee: 50€ (waged); free (unwaged)*
* Waged: scholars with a permanent, tenure-track or research fellow waged position, employed workers, entrepreneurs, etc.; unwaged: PhD candidate, students, independent scholars, unemployed, etc.
The registration fee includes coffee breaks and buffet lunch on 11.09.
Registration: from 01.06.2026 to 15.07.2026 (presenter); from 01.06.2026 to 05.09.2026 (attendee).
To present at an IASPM conference, you need to become a member.
Hotels have been pre-booked for the participants. Details will be available on the conference website.
Organizing committee: Carlo Nardi and Ruth Videsott (Free University of Bolzano-Bozen), IASPM Italia and IASPM D-A-CH.
Scientific committee: Ulrich Adelt (University of Wyoming); Emília Barna (Budapest University of Technology and Economics); Samantha Bennett (Australian National University); Guglielmo Bottin (Università degli Studi di Milano); Alessandro Bratus (Università di Pavia); Alberto Brodesco (Università di Trento); Milena Cassella (Sapienza Università di Roma); Gianpaolo Chiriacò (Universität Innsbruck); Maurizio Corbella (Università degli Studi di Milano); Lorenz Gilli (independent scholar); Mimi Haddon (University of Sussex); Anita Jóri (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg); Paolo Magaudda (Università di Padova); Gabriele Marino (Università di Torino); Katharina Moling (Museum Ladin Ciastel de Tor); Carlo Nardi (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano); Flora Pitrolo (Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo); Hillegonda Rietveld (London South Bank University); Elodie Roy (Durham University); Paolo Somigli (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano); Geoff Stahl (Victoria University of Wellington); Matt Stahl (University of Western Ontario); Will Straw (McGill University); Jacopo Tomatis (Università di Torino); Johann van der Sandt (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano); Ruth Videsott (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano); David-Emil Wickström (Popakademie Baden-Württemberg).
Conference website: https://www.unibz.it/it/events/everybody-calls-me-giorgio-moroder-across-media-arts-and-communication