Groove the City – Move the Streets 

3rd International Conference of the Urban Music Studies Scholars’ Network in cooperation with the Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP TG PSUC) 

Date: September 17-19, 2026 

Location: Vienna, Austria

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, our third international conference of the Urban Music Studies Scholars’ Network Groove the City – Move the Streets, taking place from 17-19 September 2026 at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and at TU Wien – Technische Universität Wien, in combination with the 2024-2026 event series of the Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP TG PSUC), seeks 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. Streets, in their diverse manifestations, act as stages for buskers and political movements, as sites of vibrant musical scenes and cross-cultural learning, and as contested spaces where the rights to public access and representation are negotiated. The street is not merely a passageway or backdrop; it is a lived, embodied and performed space, as well as a space for hope, resistance, and transformation. It holds different meanings for various groupswhether as a cultural hub, a zone of in- and exclusion, a site of democratic everyday practice, or a canvas for reimagining the city towards more hopeful futures. From protests and demonstrations to public celebrations, cultural rituals and everyday rhythms, from marginalized communities reclaiming public spaces to ordinary performances of belonging, the relationship between music and the street reveals profound scientific insights into urban life. In this conference, we adopt an expansive concept of (spatial) “movement” that encompasses social, cultural, and political dimensions. We are particularly interested in how “the street”— as a site of daily life, as a stage for artistic expression, as a realm of activist contestation, and political negotiation— becomes a focal point for musical practices. This conference seeks to explore how music mediates these relationships, foregrounding the tensions, solidarities, and possibilities that move the city when grooves meet the streets. To this end, we invite scholars, practitioners, activists and artists to contribute to the conference by investigating how sound interacts with, transforms, and reimagines the streets as spaces of movement, resistance, belonging, and creativity. In doing so, we also shed light on the potentially democratizing and liberatory aspects of new sonic socio-technical approaches, and create bridges to architectural and planning practices that engage with infrastructural claims for musicians’ practices such as jamming, rehearsal, grooving and improvising.