Historical Performance and Arts Practice Research
Improvisation and inventio in the Performance of Medieval Music (Oxford, 2017)
Recent presentations, conferences, papers, etc.
Current projects in-process
Improvisation and inventio in the Performance of Medieval Music (Oxford, 2017)
In 2017, Oxford University Press published my book Improvisation and Inventio in the Performance of Medieval Music, an innovative approach to medieval music as living repertoire, providing philosophical frameworks, primary-source analysis, and clear, actionable practices and exercises aimed at recovering the improvisatory and inventive aspects of medieval music for contemporary musicians.
Recipient, Texas Tech’s First Place President’s Faculty Book Award, 2019.
Historical Performance and Arts Practice Research
“In the arts, both performing and otherwise . . . “arts practice research” entails creating the art object or experience, and then reporting, in a critical and analytical fashion, upon the processes and considerations that went into that creation.”
For the past thirty years, I have been a practitioner in the field of Arts Practice Research known as “historical performance.” Historical performance is not limited to medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoires, but can be more accurately described as an investigation into historical practices of making art. Every performance is preceded by extensive research into historical instruments, early notation, unwritten improvisatory and ornamental practices, and the historical context of that particular repertoire. Its practitioners, then, are “scholar-performers” for whom historical performance is enacted research, in which the fruit of research is reified in the process of creating and executing a performance rather than in an object such as a monograph or other publication.
The art and scholarship of historical performance, and the intellectual and expressive rewards of rediscovering how artists in other eras perceived and responded to their world, occurs precisely at the intersection of ‘creativity’ and ‘scholarship’ which Arts Practice Research makes possible.
Recent presentations, conferences, papers, etc.
Conference Presentation, upcoming Nov. 2023 . “Fostering Access and Inclusion in Student Early Music Ensembles.” EMA (Early Music America) Second Annual Summit, Boston, MA.
Podcast Series (In Progress, 2022, projected 2023). Recipient of a Fall 2022 Faculty Development Leave from Texas Tech, for the development of “Imagining Medieval Music,” a series of podcasts dedicated to introducing the music of the Middle Ages from a global perspective.
Conference Paper, 2021 (May). “Research as the Mother of Invention: ‘Medieval’ Performance Practice.” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. the International Congress on Medieval Studies is an “annual gathering of around 2,750 scholars interested in medieval studies.” It is one of the 2 or 3 biggest medieval studies conferences globally.
Session Chair, 2021 (May). “Musical Craft, Composition, and Improvisation” at the 2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University.
Plenary Address, 2021 (January). “Historical Performance as Arts Practice Research.” Fifth-Annual International Conference in Historical Performance, Historical Performance Institute, held at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Panel Member, 2021 (January). International Summit of HP Directors in Higher Education, held at the Fifth-Annual International Conference in Historical Performance, Historical Performance Institute, IU Jacobs School of Music.
Session Chair, 2021 (January). “Reimagining Historical Performance, Part II.“ Panel discussion with invited directors of collegiate/conservatory historical performance/early music programs and ensembles. Current issues, challenges, strategies. Fifth-Annual International Conference in Historical Performance, Historical Performance Institute, held at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
[Multiple presentations cancelled or postponed due to COVID, 2020]
Lecture, 2020 (November). “The Historical Performance of Early Music.” Presented for OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute, TTU.
Panelist, 2020 (October). “Applications to the Past: Putting the Middle Ages into Digital Operation.” Discussion of the use of digital technologies in the scholarship and pedagogy of Medieval Studies. Annual Conference of the Texas Medieval Association. Invited.
Invited Book Proposal. Invited by Oxford University Press editors Suzanne Ryan and Kevin Karnes to submit a proposal for a Keynote edition on Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, with the intent to discuss the Ordo from a performer’s perspective. The Oxford Keynote Series features short monographs on individual works of historical and cultural importance. While under review, this project was put on hold by Oxford’s decision to limit the Keynote Volumes to 19th and post-19th century music.
Keynote Lecture-Performance, 2019 (April), In collaboration with Dr. Stacey Jocoy. Directed Collegium Musicum in live performance with historical instruments in conjunction with Jocoy lecture at South Central Renaissance Conference (national attendance, held at TTU).
Panelist / Performer. 2018 (October). “Songs on the Pilgrimage Path.” Collaborative lecture and performance at the Annual Conference of the Texas Medieval Association.
Interactive Workshop, 2018 (July). “Medieval Music Pedagogy and Vernacular Music Processes.”2018 Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference, Maynooth University, Maynooth, County Kildare, Republic of Ireland
Panel Member, 2018 (May). Early Music Entrepreneurship Session. Co-presented by the Bloomington Early Music Festival and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Career Development.
Session Chair, 2018 (May). Chaired morning “Historical Performance I” session of the third annual international early music conference Historical Performance: Theory, Practice, and Interdisciplinarity, held at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Plenary Address, 2018 (May).”Medieval performance practice: Prioritizing Product or Process?” Opening plenary address for first day of sessions of the third annual international early music conference Historical Performance: Theory, Practice, and Interdisciplinarity, held at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Conference Presentation, 2018. (April): A Contemporary Pedagogy of Ancient Music: The“Vernacular Medieval” and the Twenty-First-Century Conservatory,” for “Musicking 2018: Cultural Considerations,” an annual historical performance practice conference held at the University of Oregon.
Conference Presentation, 2016. “Contemplative Learning in the Bible Belt: Case Studies from Texas Tech University,” for Transforming higher Education: Fostering Contemplative Inquiry, Community, and Social Action, the 2016 national conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Conference Paper, 2016. “A Contemporary Pedagogy of “Ancient” Music: the ‘Vernacular Medieval’ and the Twenty-First-Century Conservatory, for the international conference Historical Performance: Theory, Practice, and Interdisciplinarity, held at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Angela Mariani 