Event | Playing by the Book: Improvisation and Music Pedagogy in the Renaissance

Professors Julie Cumming and Peter Schubert will lead the audience and a select group of McGill music students in improvisations around chant melodies found in McGill’s collection of chant manuscripts. Young musicians in the Renaissance were taught to sing from books of liturgical chant. They learned notes and intervals using a map of the musical space traced on the joints of the left hand. They then learned to improvise new voices against the chant melody, with the help of the choir master pointing to the hand. Together we will recreate these lost practices.

Doors will open at 17:00 with the event beginning at 17:30.

With special thanks to Ron Harvie (Ph.D. McGill Art History, 1999) and Doug Bagguley.

This event has been postponed. Thank you for your interest.

Julie Cumming is a professor of music history in the Schulich School of Music. She was the winner of the teaching award, doctoral level, awarded by the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools. She is the co-leader of a SSHRC partnership grant, Single Interface for Music Score Searching and Analaysis (SIMSSA), and is known for her work on musical genres, history of the book, and compositional practice in the Renaissance.

Peter Schubert is a professor of music theory in the Schulich School of Music. He is the winner of McGill’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership in Learning. He is also a renowned choral conductor, known in Montreal for his choirs VivaVoce and the Orpheus Singers. He is one of the leaders in the study of historical improvisation and counterpoint in the Renaissance.