5/1-5/2

8:30am (5/1) - 6pm (5/2)

EMPAC

The North American Conference on Video Game Music (NACVGM) returns May 1–2, 2026 as a hybrid event hosted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY at The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), bringing together scholars, composers, performers, and practitioners to explore the vibrant, interdisciplinary field of video game music and sound. Since its founding, NACVGM has served as a key international forum for research and creative work on game audio, fostering dialogue across musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, media studies, composition, critical game studies, and game design. 

Our keynote this year is Dr. Melanie Fritsch who is currently Junior professor for Media and Cultural Studies with a focus on Game Studies and related fields at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. She is a team member of the Ludomusicology Research Group as well as the speaker team of the AG Games of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft. Further, she is a co-founder of the Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games and the Journal of Sound and Music in Games as well as the AG Spiele (Verband DHd – “Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum”). She co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music in collaboration with Dr. Tim Summers.

The conference features a dynamic program of scholarly papers, panels, and creative work, alongside performances and opportunities for community engagement. Participants present 20- and 10-minute talks, poster sessions, and demonstrations of game and sound art, reflecting the breadth of contemporary approaches to game audio research and practice. 

This year’s program highlights a wide range of timely topics, including adaptations and transmedia reworkings, radio and broadcast aesthetics in games, ethnographic approaches to listening and play, sound design and accessibility, and critical perspectives on identity and pedagogy. Recent panels have explored themes such as musical adaptation across media franchises, sonic worldbuilding and placemaking, literacies of listening, and the intersections of game audio with race, gender, and social justice. 

In addition to paper sessions, NACVGM features keynote presentations by leading scholars in the field, as well as an evening concert showcasing live performances of video game music and game-inspired works. These events underscore the conference’s commitment to bridging scholarship and creative practice, offering attendees opportunities to engage with game audio as both an object of study and a site of performance. 

With both in-person and virtual attendance options, NACVGM 2026 continues to cultivate an inclusive and collaborative space for exploring how music and sound shape the cultural, aesthetic, and technological dimensions of games.

For more information, registration, and the full program, visit https://nacvgm.org/.