The field of Urban Music Studies has emerged as a vibrant interdisciplinary arena, exploring the dynamic interplay between music and urban life. At its core, this field recognizes sound as both a reflection and a constitutive element of urban life, deeply embedded in the spatial, social and cultural fabric of cities. Music shapes and is shaped by the rhythms of urban spaces, from bustling streets and quiet courtyards to iconic concert halls and underground clubs. This field draws upon and contributes to diverse academic disciplines. By engaging with a variety of perspectives from across the globe, it challenges dominant narratives and highlights the diverse ways in which music resonates within urban settings.

In the realms of planning, urban design and architecture, the development and envisioning of cultural organizations has traditionally been concerned with grand works of opera houses and theatre buildings. Since the 1970s, however, the focus has shifted towards the inclusion of informal and more circular cultural agencies, many of them linked to relational conceptions of space, or to the further development of immersive and acoustic technologies. Public space researchers have embraced socio-cultural aspects of urban life to cultivate hope, yet have only randomly engaged with the power of urban music subcultures and scenes, and the study thereof, to contribute to neighborhood solidarity, collective work practices when building music spaces, or to the deep democratic aspects of a diversity of music cultures, and the intermezzos and crossovers between them, in the city.

Against this backdrop, the Public Spaces, Urban Cultures and Hope Symposium of the Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP TG PSUC) takes place at Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien) on the 18 September 2026, in combination with the third international conference of the Urban Music Studies Scholars’ Network Groove the City – Move the Streets, taking place 17+19 September 2026 at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Both combined events seek to deepen this research field by examining the manifold mobilities that shape and are shaped by sound in urban contexts. This includes a critical engagement with the concept and materiality of “the street” as a multifaceted and symbolic terrain where social, cultural, and political processes unfold.

Steering Committee

– Sabine Knierbein (TU Wien)

– Sarah Chaker (mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna)

– Lisa Gaupp (mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

– Andrea Glauser (mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna)

 

Academic and Artistic Board

– Leni Augustin (TU Wien)

– Alenka Barber-Kersovan (Leuphana University of Lüneburg)

– Seo-Young Cho (mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna)

– Gabriella Esposito de Vita (National Research Council of Italy CNR)

– Michael Getzner (TU Wien)

– Paula Guerra (Universidade do Porto)

– Ebba Högström (Umeå University)

– Volker Kirchberg (Leuphana University of Lüneburg)

– Robin Kuchar (Leuphana University of Lüneburg)

– Anastasiia Mazurenko (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts)

– Matej Nikšič (Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia)

– Luciana Ferreira Moura Mendonça (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco)

– Richard Pfeifer (TU Wien)

– Karl Salzmann (Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien)

– Will Straw (McGill University)

– Tihomir Viderman (TU Wien)