- Where does your fascination with chant originate?
'It began at university in Canada, when we started studying Gregorian chant. Our professor took the class to a Benedictine abbey in the countryside, where we attended Vespers and talked with the monks. I realised that chant had been sung (in various forms) for over 1000 years, and was still used in worship today. Gregorian chant is functional music, you study it in the classroom, but it really comes to life during the liturgies.'
- Your next step was to travel to the United Kingdom to study musicology.
'I knew that I wanted to research Gregorian chant, but wasn’t sure which area to focus on. I wanted to be closer to primary sources, which was one of the reasons I studied overseas. At the beginning of my Masters, at Bangor University in Wales, a professor gave me an assignment on 16th century chant. I didn’t find much information on the subject, which I found confusing. When I showed my results to my professor, he explained that there is little research into chant from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. This intrigued me.'
- You saw an opportunity?
'Yes, I would like to change that situation! In Wales I was lucky to be part of a strong team of early musicologists – it was an inspiring environment, and my fascination with 16th century chant only grew further. I completed a PhD at the University of Manchester on chant in early modern Italian graduals. Following that, I was a research at the University of Salzburg, Austria, on a project about early music printing in the German-speaking lands.'
- Today we often find you in our reading room, where you are working with the collection of liturgical books from the Cathedral of Our Lady and St. James’ Church. How did you end up in Antwerp?
'In 2017-2018, I was a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven and the Alamire Foundation (International Centre for the Study of Music in the Low Countries). In October 2018, I began an FWO postdoc. I found the collection almost by accident! During an earlier visit to Antwerp, I had wondered what happened to the liturgical books from the Cathedral. I searched the internet and found the website of the Hendrik Conscience Library. I e-mailed with curator, Steven Van Impe, who arranged for me to see five graduals. I immediately realized that this was a very special collection, and that I had to do something with it. I had found my Holy Grail.'
- Why is this collection so special?
'My research focuses on the period after the Council of Trent, thus starting at the end of the sixteenth century. For me, this collection is a perfect fit. It is quite complete, and covers the period from 1570 to the twentieth century. This allows me to see how the liturgies changed during this period. Many of the books have handwritten annotations, and the interactions between the singers and the music are very instructive. The collection is so rich you could spend an entire career researching it! Moreover, while the polyphonic and instrumental music of Antwerp Cathedral and St. James have been thoroughly investigated, the chant has not. I hope that this collection and my research can add a new layer to the existing knowledge.'
- What are you looking for?
'My main interest is the theme of religious identity, and how it is reflected in the liturgies. Antwerp went through a massive transformation into a ‘bulwark of the Counter Reformation’. I want to find out more about how that happened with the music and liturgies, and the impact that this had on the identity of the different parishes. For example, you can see differences between what happened between the worship and music in the Cathedral at St. James’ Church. From a broader perspective, you can see different civic and regional identities starting to take shape in Antwerp.'
- You are probably the first researcher to investigate this collection so thoroughly. Have you discovered anything special so far?
'I am still at the beginning of my research, and so I’m focusing on the earliest books from the Cathedral. In these you can see how the canons used their music and liturgy as a form of protest against changes introduced after the Council of Trent. But I don’t want to give away too much information yet, I’ll talk about this at the lecture.'
- Will we be able to hear the music you are studying in your lecture?
‘Yes! I wanted to play music, but there are few recordings of chant from printed chant books. Thanks to the support of the Alamire Foundation, I was able to work with the singers of their ensemble Park Colleigium and make some recordings. We drew upon contemporary documents and performance instructions, and the results are fantastic. As far as I know, this will be the first time in a couple of centuries that the music from this collection is brought to life. That alone should be sufficient reason to come listen on 27 March!'
