Representing Leeds at the 18th ICMPC Conference

The 18th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC-18) is a biennial international conference held this year in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in hybrid format, from 21 to 25 July 2025. ICMPC is the leading international gathering in the broad fields of music perception and cognition and the conference is renowned for showcasing the incredible work spanning music psychology, neuroscience, education, technology.  

Against the vibrant backdrop of São Paulo, two of our PhD students, James and Bruna, had the incredible opportunity to present their research at the event and engage with a diverse community of scholars in-person. Our Music Psychology @ Leeds group directors Freya Bailes and Scott Bannister also presented their work online at the event. We asked our attendees to share a bit about their experiences of the conference and their stand-out moments. 

“I felt incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to present at the ICMPC conference this year. It was great to be able to share my research with people from all over the globe, and particularly to those within the global south. I was made to feel very welcome by those who lived and studied in the city and made lots of great connections with people all over the world which I hope to follow-up within future – possibly some exciting collaborative projects on the cards going forward! A highlight of the conference for me was the keynote talk by Nori Jacoby (Assistant Professor, Cornell University) on Mapping Cross-Cultural Internal Representations in Music. What stood out to me about Nori’s work, in addition to his incredible knowledge and expertise in the field, was the novel hands-on approach of his fieldwork in order focus on understanding the musical experiences of individuals outside of our usual western, educated and industrialised demographic. Inspiring stuff. A big highlight for me was also having the opportunity to travel to Rio De Janeiro with fellow conference attendees – a big thanks has to go to Bruna with helping me with Portuguese translations and advising us whilst we travelled her native Brazil!” – James

James presented an oral presentation outlining the results of a large-scale survey study as part of his doctoral project exploring embodiment, emotion and social connection on the dancefloor at electronic dance music events.

“This was my first time participating at the ICMPC conference, and it was a privilege to see so many amazing researchers in my home country. I truly believe in the importance of promoting more collaborations with the Global South and this was a great opportunity to start some exciting connections and possible projects for the future. One of the highlights of this conference was the symposium held by Dr. Mayron Piccolo (Harvard University) and colleagues about Communal Music and Affect Change. It was fascinating to learn about his research on communal music as a potential social reward for immigrants and refugees in the US, with a focus on mental health and well-being improvement. Beyond the conference, I had the amazing opportunity to visit the With One Voice choir in Rio de Janeiro, a choir for people with experiences of homelessness that rehearses at the stunning Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow). The rehearsal began with poetry and singing performances by some of the members and it was followed by an amazing singing session and delicious lunch. A big shout out the choir director, Rico, and all the members and volunteers who warmly welcomed me into this inspiring space!” - Bruna

Bruna presented a poster about her ongoing observational study as part of her PhD project on the experiences of members of choirs for people affected by homelessness.

Scott presented results from the 1^st Cadenza Machine Learning Challenge as part of the ongoing Cadenza Project (https://cadenzaproject.github.io). This public challenge invited entrants to develop machine learning algorithms to source separate music into individual instrument stems, and remix these to maximise audio quality for hearing aid users. Scott presented perceptual rating data from a Listener Panel of hearing aid users, to investigate the performance of the submitted machine learning systems.

“I was very sad not to be able to attend the conference in person, but the online experience was great! I was particularly struck by a talk from Suvi Saarikallio on the functions of listening to personally meaningful music, and the findings that emotions and memories were prevalent when engaging with this kind of music. It also got me thinking about my own personally meaningful music, and my conscious holding back from listening too often, so I can preserve the magic!” - Scott

Freya presented the results of a collaborative study involving Professor Karen Burland, also from the Music Psychology @ Leeds team, and Polly Ives from Concerteenies, a charity specialising in musical events for young children and their adults in the UK. Concerteenies works with professional musicians to deliver high-quality Relaxation Concerts for new parents and their babies, and the presented research suggests that parents seem to benefit as much as their children, leading to an increased sense of parental self-efficacy.

“While I wish I could have attended in person, I was able to attend most conference sessions remotely. As a seasoned ICMPC attender, I’m always interested to observe shifts in research trends. This year I was encouraged by the greater emphasis on cross-cultural research compared to previous conferences. A related paper that particularly caught my eye was the fascinating work of Jonathan Tang, as presented in his paper ‘Emotional experiences with favourite music: The role of self-construal across cultures’.” - Freya

We extend our utmost thanks to the organising committee of ICMPC-18 and I think it’s fair to say we all hope to return to ICMPC again next year!

 

Words by James Cannon