The Society for Musicology in Ireland (SMI) has been established to promote and foster musical scholarship in all its forms. The Society seeks to provide a forum for the practice of musicology which reflects the gamut of musical research in Ireland, notably in ethnomusicology, historical musicology, analysis, performance practice, textual criticism, archival research, organology, cultural and social history and critical discourse, to name some of the disciplines pursued by musicologists in this country.

Several factors attest to the healthy condition of musical research in Ireland, especially within the past two decades. The Irish Chapter of the Royal Musical Association (RMA), founded in 1987, is one such factor which has lent impetus to the founding of a national society for musicology. The Maynooth International Musicological Conference (1995), itself a landmark in the consolidation of musical studies in Ireland, is another. The Council of Heads of Music in Higher Education in Ireland (CHMHE) has also been formative in providing an opportunity to bring SMI into being. Throughout Ireland, the significant increase in graduate studies in musicology likewise supports the timing of this new initiative.

The SMI now invites you to become a member. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in musical scholarship, whether professional or otherwise. The society aims to be representative of musicology throughout the island of Ireland. It also warmly welcomes applications from abroad. A simple application form which identifies two categories of membership (‘ordinary’ and ‘student’) is available from the SMI website: www.music.ucc.ie/smi.

The steering committee of SMI will assist in the organisation of the first conference of the society (to be held in association with the Irish Chapter of the RMA) which will take place between 2 and 4 May, 2003 in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The steering committee will also prepare a draft constitution and nomination forms in order that the membership of the society can elect its executive council and officers (including a president, secretary and treasurer). As soon as the executive has been elected, the steering committee will lapse.

As an incentive to membership, the first 150 persons to join will receive both volumes of the Selected Proceedings of the Maynooth International Musicological Conference, published as volumes four and five of Irish Musical Studies by Four Courts Press in 1996.