The Royal Musical Association (RMA), the second oldest musicological society in the world after KVNM, celebrated its 150th anniversary with a three-day anniversary conference in London from 11 to 14 September 2024. At the invitation of the RMA, I attended this conference, also a great opportunity to exchange news and views with colleagues, some of whom had come to Utrecht in 2018 for the KVNM's anniversary. I presented the RMA board with a copy of the TVNM anniversary edition of 2018 (on the history of the KVNM).

The RMA had put together an extensive conference programme with seven or eight parallel sessions, composition workshops and lecture recitals each round. The keynote speakers were Catherine A. Bradley, expert on medieval polyphony and winner of the Dent Medal 2023, and Alex Ross, the former music critic of The New York Times and The New Yorker. This rich programme, diverse in its themes and research methods, provided a sampling of musicological research within the UK. The growing interest in women musicians and researchers and diversity issues stood out, as well as the focus on popular music, music for film, television and video games. Sessions on topical themes such as ‘Ecology, Memory and Environment’ and ‘Soundscapes of Trauma’ attracted many interested participants.

New perspectives were also visible within historical research. For instance, in two sessions devoted to French music, (female) researchers highlighted the role lesser-known composers, such as André Hodeir, Jean Barraqué and André Jolivet, played in the course of the 20th century. This revealed that Jolivet, author of several compositions for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, maintained remarkably close contacts in the Soviet Union during the ‘cold war’. Moreover, recent research demonstrates how this composer influenced the young Pierre Boulez.

The closing day covered the rich history of the RMA as well as its early international cooperation with the (K)VNM, among others. One of the speakers was Leanne Langley, author of the anniversary publication The Royal Musical Association: Creating Scholars, Advanced Research.

The book will be published in December 2024 but can already be ordered here.