HYBRID HORIZONS — Call for Abstracts

HYBRID HORIZONS — Festival & Conference
16–18 October 2026 · Megaron — Athens Concert Hall

Hybrid Horizons is a three-day festival and conference of contemporary experimental and research-based music, co-produced by the Greek Composers Union and the Megaron — Athens Concert Hall, dedicated to mixed electroacoustic composition, multichannel spatial audio, and the use of artificial-intelligence technologies as designed and authorially controlled systems.

The central question of the event is how the notion of composition shifts — or expands — when sound emerges not only from the direct control of material, but also from the design of the conditions within which it acquires behaviour, temporality, and form. How do these two approaches speak to one another? Where does control end and the mediation of the system begin? What is the role of the composer, the performer, and technology in this field? And how does this relationship change when spatial audio or artificial-intelligence technologies enter the system as designed, authorially controlled tools?

In this spirit, technology — including artificial intelligence — is treated not as an autonomous creative agent or "co-creator," but may be understood as a tool for designing behaviour, with defined limits, rules, and temporal parameters, integrated into the compositional responsibility of the author.

We invite composers, performers, researchers, musicologists, and music technologists to submit proposals for presentations exploring — but not limited to — the following themes:

• Mixed electroacoustic composition: relationships between acoustic and electroacoustic/electronic sound, fixed-media and real-time approaches.
• Multichannel and spatial audio: composition, spatialisation, and listening in space (ambisonics, multichannel setups, spatialization strategies).
• Artificial intelligence as a designed system: compositional control, limits and rules, interactive and generative systems within the composer's responsibility.
• Contemporary music as an architecture of conditions: the role of the composer, the performer, and technology in designing the behaviour, temporality, and form of sound.
• Performance practice and technology: the relationship between performer, instrument, and electronic means.
• Critical, historical, and analytical approaches: aesthetic, theoretical, and historiographical readings of mixed, spatial, and technologically mediated music-making.

Keynote lectures

• Mikhail Malt (IRCAM, Paris): Realizations & Expansions: Performance Cases of an Open Work using Artificial Intelligence Generative Tools
• Panayiotis Kokoras (University of North Texas): Sound Virtuosity and Post-Instrumental Composition: Sound as Structural Unit

Organising committee

• Stylianos Dimou (Grieg Academy, University of Bergen)
• Alexandros Spyrou (College of Music, Academy of Performing Arts, University of the Arts Sharjah)
• Michalis Paraskakis (President, Greek Composers Union)

Practical information

• Abstract submission deadline: 31 August 2026
• Notification of acceptance: 7 September 2026
• Abstract: up to 300 words, accompanied by 3–5 keywords
• Language of presentation: English or Greek. For non-English presentations, the abstract must be submitted in English.
• Publication: The abstracts of the accepted presentations will be published in an online (digital) book of abstracts. The scientific supervision and review of the abstracts, as well as the editorial responsibility for the publication, are undertaken by Mikhail Malt, Panayiotis Kokoras, Stylianos Dimou, and Alexandros Spyrou.
• 
  Presentation formats: 
• Standard paper: 15–20 minutes
• Extended paper: 30 minutes
• Poster session: 5 minutes

Presentations may be delivered either in person or online / as a video presentation.
Travel and accommodation costs are covered by the participants themselves. Upon request, the organising committee can provide a letter of invitation to support funding applications to institutions and to the participants' home universities.

Submission
Proposals are submitted exclusively via the online form:

Hybrid Horizons – Application Form

The form includes all required information: full name and affiliation, contact details, short biography (up to 150 words), title of the presentation, abstract (up to 300 words), 3–5 keywords, thematic area, presentation format, mode of participation, language of presentation, and any technical requirements.