IN.TUNE in Belgrade: navigating “Music in Socio-Cultural Turmoil” together
A national event with a European horizon
On 30 October, IN.TUNE’s first National Dissemination Event takes place in Belgrade, hosted under the umbrella Music in Socio-Cultural Turmoil (MSCT) – the 17th international conference organised by the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade. The purpose is clear and outward-looking: to share results and perspectives from the European University Alliance IN.TUNE with a wider public in Serbia — students, teachers, cultural professionals and policy stakeholders — while inviting a European conversation about how we create, teach and research in music and the arts today.
This Belgrade event is the first in a series of eight national dissemination activities that will unfold across IN.TUNE partner institutions through to 2027. Each one will bring alliance-wide learning closer to local communities, and bring local and regional voices back into the European dialogue.
An alliance conversation within a strong academic tradition
Music in Socio-Cultural Turmoil conferences comes as the latest in the long line of international conference by the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Music in Belgrade, known for tackling urgent questions in and through music. This year, it “opens its doors even wider” by serving as the umbrella event for IN.TUNE’s Serbian dissemination programme. The fit is natural. In a moment marked by uncertainty and change, music is not only a mirror of social turbulence but also a means for navigating it.
Within this framework, the IN.TUNE event grows organically out of MSCT conference’s academic and artistic fabric. IN.TUNE-affiliated keynote speakers, paper presenters and Program Committee members help shape the conference’s scholarly direction. At the same time, the concert stages and lecture-recitals — co-created by teachers and students of the Faculty of Music with IN.TUNE partners — carry those ideas into artistic research and performance.
Three dimensions in action
The event is designed around the alliance’s three core dimensions, each closely resonant with the MSCT theme:
- Innovative education, with sessions emphasising learning as a shared, cross-border process. A violin master class by Prof. Eszter Haffner from University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw), exemplifies this, transforming a traditional format into a co-creative experience that blurs the line between classroom and stage, institution and community.
- Research for education, through keynotes and papers coming from researchers and teachers from all IN.TUNE universities, connecting cutting-edge scholarship with curriculum design, teaching practice and assessment. The focus falls on knowledge that improves learning — especially in contexts shaped by socio-cultural tension, mobility and technological change.
- Societal engagement, which, rather than a stand-alone strand, runs through the entire programme. Whether in discussions of music’s role in public life or in performances that function as research through art, the event treats engagement as intrinsic to artistic and academic practice in times of turmoil.
From reflection to performance—and back again
The Belgrade programme moves fluidly between scientific reflection, artistic research and innovative pedagogy. This “dynamic interplay” is deliberate. By placing a master class alongside a keynote, or a lecture-recital alongside a panel, the event demonstrates how ideas travel: scholarship can underpin performance; performance can test and expand scholarly insights; pedagogy can translate both into sustainable, student-centred practice.
For students, this means direct exposure to European peers and mentors. For teachers and professional staff, it means practical approaches to updating courses, assessment, partnerships and student support. For cultural sector colleagues and policymakers, it offers evidence-informed perspectives on music’s public value in unsettled times.
Who is it for?
While hosted in Belgrade, the event speaks to audiences across and beyond Serbia:
- Students of the Faculty of Music and other national academies keen to connect their studies with European practice.
- Academic and professional staff exploring curriculum renewal, international collaboration and student-centred innovation.
- Music and cultural sector professionals interested in research-informed artistic work, partnerships and audience development.
- National stakeholders and policymakers seeking grounded insight into how higher arts education responds to social change.
Why it matters—for Belgrade and for Europe
By launching the first national dissemination event within MSCT, IN.TUNE shows how an alliance can add value to existing excellence rather than sit alongside it. The result is not an imported programme, but a shared platform: Belgrade’s academic and artistic strengths carry European collaboration, and European collaboration strengthens Belgrade’s contribution back to the network.
As the series continues across the eight partners through to 2027, each national event will reflect its local context while advancing common goals: improving student learning, connecting research with teaching, and deepening the social role of music and the arts.
Date: 29–30 October 2025Practical details
Host: Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade
Programme: View and download
Host umbrella event: International Conference Music in Socio-Cultural Turmoil (MSCT)
Conference information: https://musicinturmoil.wixsite.com/msct