Editorial: On the Work of Musicology That Lies Ahead

Abstract

We had long hoped that we would conclude our editorship of Acta Musicologica with a very different “Editorial” from the one we now write. We wanted to celebrate the ways in which Acta, supported by the engaged scholarship of IMS music scholars, had risen to the challenges of pandemic and racial reckoning, of enriching the discursive counterpoint of an expanding interdisciplinarity. With each issue Acta welcomed new voices and opened as a forum for new debate and discussion. As the final issues of our editorship crossed our desks, we were particularly excited about the able new editorial team, Jen-yen Chen, Arnulf Christian Mattes, and Luisa Nardini, whose conversations with us promised exciting new possibilities for the journal. There was so much to celebrate, and we were eager to turn to these pages to sing the praises of a new song. Now that the moment to sing that new song is upon us, however, we pause, for the moment foregoing celebration. Acta does bear witness to much good work over the past dozen years, but we—which is to say, the readers of this journal and international music scholars—have much more work to do, urgent work. In our final “Editorial” we choose, therefore, to turn to the work of musicology that lies ahead. . . .