From Book to Song: Chant Written and Performed in the Middle Ages (lecture)

Date: Sunday, September 16, 2007
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Getty Center, Museum Lecture Hall
Admission: Free; reservations required.

Music had great significance in the religious life of the Middle Ages. It was a key ingredient in religious ceremonies and was an important means through which Christians expressed their devotion to God.

In this lecture, music historian Susan Boynton, an expert on liturgical music of the Middle Ages, will explain how medieval sacred music was written and performed. She will share recordings of different types of medieval chants and describe the fascinating development of musical notation for Gregorian chant, a type of sacred song that became the dominant musical form of the medieval church. Boynton will illustrate her lecture with beautifully illuminated choir books on view in the exhibition Music for the Masses: Illuminated Choir Books.

About Susan Boynton
Susan Boynton is associate professor of music at Columbia University and co-chair of the university's Interdepartmental Committee on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She has degrees in music, medieval studies, and musicology and is an expert on liturgical music in medieval Western monasticism, monastic education, and the role of women in medieval song. She is the co-editor of Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of Youth and author of Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125, which views the history of a monastery in Italy through its liturgy.

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