The Music of Words: Language, Poetry, and Music in Tolkien’s Works
Signum University and the Mythgard Institute, in partnership with Hern Ennorath, invite you to join us in Melbourne for OzMoot 2025. For our first trip to Melbourne and third trip to Australia, we invite you to contemplate The Music of Words: Language, Poetry, and Music in Tolkien’s Works.
When: 24-26, January 2025
Where: Studio 1 Community Hub at Richmond Neighbourhood Centre
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Price: $100.00 USD for in-person adult attendance, $45.00 USD for in-person student attendance, $35.00 USD for remote attendance
“At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell…” – The Lord of the Rings, Book 2, Chapter 2.
Tolkien’s love for language greatly influenced his storytelling, giving Middle-earth a rich linguistic variety and sense of history. But the power of his languages goes further than this, with the flowing phonetics of Elvish tongues bringing a musical quality to his poetry and prose. Tolkien claimed that, from a young age, any musical knowledge or talent was “transformed into linguistic terms,” giving his language creation and his writings in English a uniquely musical flow.
He also had an academic interest in song-literature and the transmission of culture through the oral traditions of story, song, and verse, with his love of classical literature and the Norse sagas. To Tolkien the philologist and historian, it would have been natural that story and song blend so well together in giving meaning to his created universe. Even the creation of Arda by Ilúvatar involved taking the beauty of music and giving it a physical form upon which his mythology could play out.
At OzMoot 2025 we seek to explore how music, poetry, and language shape and enrich Tolkien’s works, and the many resulting adaptations in film, theatre, and song. We also encourage exploration of how music, language, and stories demonstrate diversity of cultures, both in Middle-earth and in the primary world, as well as how music and stories are universal and bring many cultures and languages together with no barriers.
Our guest of honour is Professor Corey Olsen.
As the president of Signum University, Corey is the inspiring force behind a team of planners, educators, and visionaries who are revolutionizing education for the third millennium. In addition to teaching classes on J.R.R. Tolkien, Chaucer, and modern fantasy literature for Signum, Dr. Olsen has extended the concept of the digital classroom to include non-traditional outlets. Through the Mythgard Academy, he offers free weekly lectures on works of speculative fiction chosen by Signum University supporters, and he has embraced the “new literature” of cinema and video game adaptations through interactive programs such as The Silmarillion Film Project and in-game discussions of Lord of the Rings Online.
OzMoot is proudly supported by Hern Ennorath: the Australian Tolkien Fellowship and smial of the Tolkien Society. A tight-knit community of Tolkien lovers from Australia, New Zealand, and now across the southern hemisphere, we look forward to welcoming all with open arms to our local moot. Over the past few years, OzMoot has proved to be a uniquely important event in forming and enriching our community, which keeps in touch via Zoom meetings throughout the year, and providing us with an opportunity to visit different parts of our large country.
OzMoot Call for Proposals
Our Call for Proposals – be they academic papers, creative presentations, workshops, or panel discussions – on the topic of The Music of Words: Language, Poetry, and Music in Tolkien’s Works. is now open and will close on 24 December. Please note that a conference theme helps tie the day together and optimize fun—and we welcome anyone to respond to our Call for Proposals. Our moots are fantastic places for anyone to develop their presentation skills.
