Welcome to SASRIM Conference 2020

Dear Delegate,

A very warm welcome to the Fourteenth Annual Congress of the South African Society for Research in Music! For the first time, our annual meeting is being hosted online, and we are very excited about the possibilities this format may offer us. We are of course saddened to not be able to meet each other in person this year, but we look forward to being together again in 2021. Nelson Mandela University has graciously offered to host our Fifteenth Annual Congress in Port Elizabeth!

We can all look forward to a challenging and interesting programme, featuring presentations by South African scholars as well as several speakers from other countries, including Ghana, India, and England.

The shift to an online conference has necessitated some adjustments in the ways we hope delegates will engage with each other and the papers and presentations being offered.  As such, we are offering the following formats:

• Conference papers uploaded and available for two weeks on our virtual conference website, hosted by Mighty Networks. All participants are warmly welcomed to engage with these papers by posting questions and responses to the online forums; we hope that delegates will find the website very user-friendly and easy to navigate, but please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. Our web developer, Jana Hollander, will be available to answer any technical questions and can be reached here or emailed directly.
• On 17 and 18 September, a series of live events will be available; these can be accessed via the virtual conference platform, and will be hosted by the Zoom online communication tool.

The programme for the two days of live events is available here.

We are very excited to welcome Gwen Ansell as our keynote speaker this year. She will be presenting a paper entitled "Why Stories Matter" and will be in discussion with Lindelwa Dalamba on South African composer, pianist and journalist Todd Matshikiza. The keynote address is scheduled as a live event on 18 September at 15h45.

Welcome to SASRIM 2020, the virtual version! We look forward to the following days of engagement, interaction and shared energy!

The SASRIM Fourteenth Annual Congress is made possible by the generous support of the SAMRO Foundation.