The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Management and Leadership [research group]
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WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
The title The New Lexicon names the need to reconsider the vocabularies through which music management and leadership describe, justify, and evaluate themselves. Terms such as vision, mission, excellence, innovation, impact, growth, sustainability, resilience, efficiency, entrepreneurship, audience development, participation, diversity, inclusion, relevance, professionalism, community, and care have become central to organisational discourse. Their meanings, however, are neither stable nor universally beneficial.
These terms emerge from traditions of arts administration, cultural policy, public service, business management, philanthropy, activism, and governance. They enable some questions while displacing others. “Excellence” may support artistic ambition while concealing who defines its standard. “Sustainability” may name ecological responsibility, financial continuity, manageable labour, or institutional survival. “Growth” may refer to revenue, audience reach, artistic capacity, public value, or scale, although these aims can conflict. “Community” may describe a relationship, a demographic category, or a claim to legitimacy made without sharing power.
A new lexicon does not mean replacing one managerial vocabulary with another definitive system. Nor does it assume that inherited concepts should be abandoned. Its task is to examine what existing words permit practitioners to perceive, which assumptions they carry, where they generate confusion, and where new distinctions become necessary.
Naming is inseparable from practice. To define success differently is to collect different evidence and allocate attention differently. To distinguish access from participation, consultation from shared authority, resilience from endurance, or leadership from control can alter policies, budgets, contracts, timelines, and responsibilities. Conversely, organisational experimentation may disclose relations for which no adequate term exists. The new lexicon emerges through movement between acting and naming, experience and articulation, institutional proposition and critical response.
Participants will identify key terms within their practices, trace their assumptions, compare their uses across contexts, and formulate alternatives where necessary. The objective is not universal agreement, but greater precision without erasing organisational, artistic, cultural, or political difference. A productive lexicon should make disagreement more intelligible and decisions more accountable, not eliminate either.
DATES
MENTORS
PROGRAMME FORMAT
RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
WHO THE PROGRAMME ADDRESSES
TOWARDS MULTIPLE PHILOSOPHIES OF MUSIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
APPLICATION
APPLICATION FORM AND
PARTICIPATION FEES
The New Lexicon program is produced by .abeceda Institute
.abeceda [Institute for Research in Art, Critical Thought and Philosophy], a public-benefit NGO and non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing contemporary artistic practices and critical inquiry. Through its innovative programmes, .abeceda has gained international recognition as one of the leading platforms for contemporary music and artistic research in the Adriatic region and across Europe: www.abeceda.io