The Music Encoding Conference is the annual focal point for the Music Encoding Initiative community. The 2018 conference is being hosted by MITH and the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library between May 22 -- 25. This year's theme "Encoding and Performance" will explore the relationship between music encoding and performance practice, such as digital dynamic scores, use of encoded music for pedagogical purposes related to performance, and speculation about future interconnections. Music encoding is a critical component of the emerging fields of digital musicology, digital editions, symbolic music information retrieval, and others. At the centre of these fields, the Music Encoding Conference has emerged as an important cross-disciplinary venue for theorists, musicologists, librarians, and technologists to meet and discuss new advances in their fields.