Renaissance Music and Musicology: Challenges and Opportunities

IN SUMMER 2002 , when the International Musicological Society (IMS) gathered for its quinquennial meeting in Leuven, I was still a relatively junior scholar, with only a few grants and publications to my name. My presentation, “When Is a Madrigal Not a Madrigal?,” focused on challenging the status of the musical score, which for over a century had been the primary tool for the study, analysis, and performance of Renaissance music. After one set of afternoon sessions, I was thrilled to find myself walking next to Jessie Ann Owens, who generously engaged me in conversation (here I paraphrase): “I’m so glad,” she said, “that you have decided to devote yourself to The What.” “What?” I replied, confused. “The What,” she repeated. “It used to be that every musicologist wanted to study Renaissance music. Now, when someone asks what music I work on, I say, ‘The Renaissance,’ and they say, ‘The What?’” Nearly seventeen years later, and at the time of writing, the medieval and Renaissance musicology community is preparing for its annual meeting (affectionately known as MedRen), which this year is hosted by the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. Over four days there will be 283 papers with six parallel sessions in each time block, two workshops, ten lecture recitals, one roundtable, an exhibition, and a concert. Reconstructions of lost instruments will be played; new manuscript discoveries will be announced; music from Iceland to Iberia to Georgia will be discussed; critiques will be anchored in feminist musicology, film theory, and disability studies; traditional analysis and historical inquiry will sit alongside sessions on digital humanities. At vibrant events such as these, Renaissance musicology does not seem like a field under threat—in almost every way, it feels as if it is growing