Adapting Sound: Adaptation and the Screen Soundtrack

31 October 2026, Huddersfield

University of Huddersfield

RMA Study Day

Adapting Sound will focus on discourse around the role of the soundtrack in film, television, and game adaptations, promoting discussion of the relationships between music and the adaptation process. There are few opportunities which relate directly to considering adaptation specifically. Despite adaptations making up a large part of the economic capital of screen media, there is relatively little soundtrack-focused scholarship which relates directly to the aesthetic, critical and contextual processes of adaptation itself. This study day, supported by the RMA, encourages contributions related to any screen media format, placing the emphasis on the specific relationships between music, sound and adaptation.

We are looking for 20-minute presentations that focus on any aspects of adaptation and audiovisual musicology; some potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

The role of the soundtrack in specific audiovisual case study adaptations;

The implications of the adaptation process more broadly in screen media;

The role of the soundtrack in narrative and/or semiological aspects of adaptation;

The role of the soundtrack in transmedial adaptation processes;

Issues of authorship and agency in understanding adapted audiovisual texts;

Practice based research papers considering the role of adaptation in composition for screen.

Presentations can take any format, including the exhibition and discussion of creative work related to screen adaptation. We are particularly interested to hear from postgraduate students and early career researchers.

Please submit a 250 word abstract and 50 word bio by email by Monday 10th August.

We will aim to notify everyone in early September. There will be some travel bursaries available to student members of the RMA.

Musicologie.org, 56 rue de la Fédération, 93100 Montreuil. 06 06 61 73 41.

ISSN 2269-9910.

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Dimanche 6 Septembre, 2026