M. Jennifer Bloxam

M. Jennifer Bloxam

Herbert H. Lehman Professor of Music, Emerita

At Williams since 1986, retired 2023

Areas of Expertise

Early music and its social and religious context
Interactions between plainsong and polyphony
Narrative and exegesis in 15th and 16th-century sacred music
The music of Jacob Obrecht
Musical borrowing from medieval to modern times
Bach and his legacy
Carmen and its legacy
Shakespeare and music

 

 

Scholarship/Creative Work

Publications
( = public musicology contributions)

Recent Books (edited):

Exploring Christian Song. Edited by M. Jennifer Bloxam and Andrew Shenton. Lexington Books (2017).

 

Recent Multi-Media Projects:

Réécouter Van Eyck: la peinture en musique — Musique sacrée devant ses images sacrées (Listen Again to Van Eyck: Painting in Music — Sacred Music Before his Sacred Images). 

Lecture-Performance developed in collaboration with Stratton Bull, director of the Dutch vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, featuring music by Du Fay and Busnoys. In connection with the exhibition Revoir Van Eyck: La Vierge du chancelier Rolin (A New Look at Jan van Eyck: The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin) at The Louvre, Paris, April 2024.

 

Onze Lieve Vrouwommegang — The Feast of the Assumption in Golden Age Antwerp

Concert program developed in collaboration with Stratton Bull, director of the Dutch vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, the Swiss wind ensemble I Fedeli, and organist Wim Diepenhorst, featuring Obrecht’s Missa Sub tuum presidium. For the Laus Polyphoniae Festival of Flanders, Antwerp (BE), August 2023, and the York Early Music Festival, York (UK), July 2024.

  • Project advisor from program concept to repertoire selection and performance aspects.
  • “The Feast of the Assumption in Golden Age Antwerp.” Laus Polyphoniae Festival and York Early Music Festival programme book essay, August 2023 and July 2024.
  • “A Musical Triptych for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Golden-Age Antwerp.” Pre-concert lecture for this concert at the Laus Polyphoniae Festival and the York Early Music Festival, August 2023 and July 2024.

 

Nicolas Champion • Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena: Apostola apostolorum / A Renaissance Brotherhood celebrates St. Mary Magdalene. CD with the Dutch vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, directed by Stratton Bull. Challenge Classics CC72879 (The Netherlands, 2022).

  • Project advisor from initial concept to repertoire selection and performance aspects.
  • Apostola apostolorum: Celebrating St. Mary Magdalene with the Brotherhood of Our Illustrious Lady.” Co-authored essay for inclusion in CD booklet.
    • Lecture-Concert Tour developed in collaboration with Stratton Bull, director of the Dutch vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, combining an illustrated lecture/demonstration with a concert presentation of the CD program. March 2022 performances in ’s-Hertogenbosch, Amsterdam, and Breda (NL)
  • Pre-Concert Lecture for the Cappella Pratensis concert “Mary Magdalene: A Spiritual Journey,” Williams College, April 2023
  • Lecture-Demonstration “Mary Magdalene: A Spiritual Journey” with Cappella Pratensis for The Big Sing Choral Festival, Haarlem (NL), July 2023

 

Recent Articles and Book Chapters:

“Music and Humanism in the Long Fifteenth Century.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Theology, vol. 3: Contexts, edited by Alexander Lingas and Martin Clarke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

“Virgin and Child with Angels.” In The Museum of Renaissance Music: A History in 100 Exhibits, edited by Vincenzo Borghetti and Tim Shephard, 24-29. Turnout, Belgium: Brepols, 2023.

“Dionysius Prioris – Requiem” and “Jean Richafort – Requiem.” In The Book of Requiems, vol. 1, edited by Pieter Bergé and David Burn. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2022.

“Richafort’s Requiem: Beyond Josquin.” Invited contribution to a special issue of Early Music on the theme of “Sight, Sound, and Self in Early Modern Commemoration,” Early Music 47 (2020).

Cum angelis et archangelis: Singing a Sacramental Cosmology in the Medieval Christian West.” In Full of Your Glory: Liturgy, Cosmos, Creation, edited by Teresa Berger, 211-30. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2019.

“Cantus and Cantus Firmi: Solving Puzzles in Three Fifteenth-Century Annunciation Masses.” Journal of the Alamire Foundation 10 (2018), 159-72.

 

Recent Conference Papers, Symposia, Seminars, Invited Lectures:
( = public musicology contributions)

O Dulciz Maria: A Musico-Theological Contemplation of a Late Medieval Ivory Relief.” Paper read at the online Annual International Music and Theology Symposium, University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto (ON), May-June 2024.  

 

“Analogical Analysis: Methodological Musings on ‘Art’ for the Altar.” Presentation for the Workshop Eyes and Ears: Comparing Formal Analyses in Art and Music (Southern Low Countries, 1350-1700), Milton Keynes (UK), April 2024.

 

“Incarnational Humanism and Music in the Long Fifteenth Century.” Paper read at the online Annual International Music and Theology Symposium, University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto (ON), May 2023.  

 

“Josquin’s Missa Sine nomine.” Invited filmed interview for the documentary-concert film with Stile Antico by the Belgian Alamire Foundation, March 2022. https://www.alamirefoundation.org/nl/resources/alamire-tv/ 

 

“Josquin in Rome.” Invited virtual pre-concert lecture for the virtual concert by Cappella Pratensis at the Laus Polyphoniae Festival in Antwerp (BE), August 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzX0YcSpl8M 

 

 

Awards, Fellowships & Grants

Recent Fellowships 

Alamire Foundation Resident Fellow at the House of Polyphony, Leuven (BE), June–July 2023 

Fellow in Sacred Music, Worship, and the Arts, Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University, 2013‒2014

 

 

Professional Affiliations

Recent Professional Affiliations

Advisory Board Member, Journal of the Alamire Foundation (2009–present)
President, Society for Christian Scholarship in Music (2017–2019)
Vice-President, Society for Christian Scholarship in Music (2015–2017)