Name: Medieval Song and the Sounding of World, Body, and Imagination
Start: 2023-09-28T16:30:00
Location: Princeton University

Amber Evans

Clifton Massey

David Dickey

Thomas Mccargar

Niccolo Seligmann

Christopher Preston Thompson

Concordian Dawn

Princeton University Music Department

“Almost everything we might wish to know about the sound of medieval music is lost to us,” warns Daniel Leech-Wilkinson. Through the double medium of discursive speculation and live performance, Sarah Kay and Concordian Dawn set out in this lecture-performance not to know medieval song – we agree that is not possible – but to relive some of its affective realities, which we locate not in the objective worlds of time, place, or historical circumstance, but in dynamic interactions between body and world inflected by imagination. The sounds of this song are conjured not just by birds and fountains, but by celestial beasts and alluring sirens. Some of these sung texts represent the singing subject captivated by beauty, others struggling between life and death, others at the limits of a dream world, or ecstatic with joy.

EPSG:4326

Medieval Song and the Sounding of World, Body, and Imagination

Princeton University