I’m excited to announce that I will be editing a collective volume named Nikolai Medtner: Music, Aesthetics, and Contexts in collaboration with Christoph Flamm, which will be published with Olms Verlag during 2020. Funding is provided by the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. The volume is designed to discuss Medtner’s music and artistic thought from different perspectives, aiming to cover multiple aspects of the composer’s work and life. Contributions from various musical and scholarly backgrounds are welcome. If you are involved with Medtner and wish to submit an article, please send your abstract and academic bio by September 30, 2019. Full texts in English language, ranging between 25,000 and 40,000 characters, should be submitted by January 31, 2020. — Here is the official Call for Contributions.

Part One: Written Correspondence
(1) Feel free to sport your doctoral degree in your email signature module, letterhead, or address stamp.
(2) State your doctoral degree in the displayed sender name of your email account, if you really do consider it necessary.
(3) Refrain from including your doctoral degree, or any abbreviation of it, in your email address, such as philip.dee.phd@ac.edu or dr.donald.rump@cumbridge.pov.jiz. If at all possible, also avoid writing it on envelopes by hand.
(4) Do not, by all means, sign your correspondence with your doctoral degree attached to your name, regardless of how cordially, sincerely, or respectfully you choose to express your salutation. Your conversation partner will appreciate your modesty. Thanks for your attention.

I wrote a few lines on the questionable tendency in classical music journalism to refer to performers as ›geniuses‹ and to conductors as ›maestri‹. Not that anybody asked for my opinion, and I guess that some of you don’t care at all—but that’s exactly why I felt the need to express my uneasiness with that matter. Out now in VAN Magazin. Your thoughts are appreciated.