ESCOM – European Society
for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
ESCOM is an international non-profit society with the aim to support theoretical, experimental and applied research in the cognitive sciences of music. The society disseminates knowledge of music perception and cognition, and encourages European and international cooperation within the fields of cognitive sciences of music.
ESCOM was established in 1991. To support its activities the Society publishes Musicæ Scientiæ, the first issue of which was published in 1997. Musicæ Scientiæ publishes empirical, theoretical and critical articles directed at increasing understanding of how music is perceived, represented and generated. The journal deals with a wide range of topics, such as developmental psychology of music, music analysis, musical creativity, similarity, music and evolution, emotions, and performance. Musicae Scientiae appears three times in a year and is published from 2011 onwards by SAGE publications.
In addition to publication activities, ESCOM organizes triennial conferences as well as seminars, educational programs and summer schools. The first ESCOM conference was organized in Trieste, Italy. In every six years the Society has a joint conference with International Society for Cognitive Sciences of music (ICMPC).
As well as supporting occasional publications, ESCOM edits a series of "Classic European Music Science Monographs". This is project to publish English translations of seminal historic European treatises on systematic and scientific musicology from 20th and earlier centuries. Translations are funded from a special "Irène Deliège Translation Fund" endowed to ESCOM in 2010. The first volume in the series, Carl Stumpf's "Die Anfänge der Musik" (1911) ("The Origins of Music") will be published in 2012.
Membership in ESCOM consists of Full Members, Student Members, Sustaining Members and Honorary Members. In addition to the journal the membership in ESCOM offers an international network of first rank scholars, guarantees easy access to most updated information about the resent development in the field. Members will be informed about the interesting upcoming events, such as symposia, seminars, and conferences. ESCOM online discussion forum is a new platform for changing ideas and ESCOM group on facebook helps in finding people interested in similar research topics.