M. Jennifer Bloxam

M. Jennifer Bloxam

Herbert H. Lehman Professor of Music, Emerita

413-597-2007
At Williams since 1986

Areas of Expertise

Early music and its cultural context
Interactions between plainsong and polyphony
Narrative and exegesis in 15th and 16th-century sacred music
Music and spirituality
Musical borrowing from medieval to modern times
Bach and his legacy
Carmen

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:

♫ A Golden Mass: Celebrating the Annunciation with Guillaume du Fay. Concert program developed in collaboration with collaboration with Stratton Bull, director of the Dutch vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis (http://www.cappellapratensis.nl/), featuring Du Fay’s Missa Ecce ancilla Domini, for the Laus Polyphoniae Festival of Flanders, Antwerp, Belgium, August 2019.

  • Project advisor from initial concept to repertoire selection and performance aspects.
  • “The Missa aurea Triptych in Context.” Essay for inclusion in the Laus Polyphoniae programme book, August 2019.

♫ Pierre de la Rue • Missa Cum jocunditate: Visions of Joy / The Chapel of Hieronymus Bosch. CD with the Dutch vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, directed by Stratton Bull, with Wim Diepenhorst, organ. Challenge Classics CC72710 (The Netherlands, 2016).

  • Project advisor from initial concept to repertoire selection and performance aspects.
  • “In the Chapel with Hieronymus Bosch.” Essay for inclusion in CD booklet.

 

Recent Articles:

“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.

“Ockeghem’s Presence in Obrecht’s Masses.” Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Musiekgeschiedenis 67 (2017), 103-24.

“The Late Medieval Composer as Cleric: Browsing Chant Manuscripts with Obrecht.” In Exploring Christian Song, edited by M. Jennifer Bloxam and Andrew Shenton, 29-52. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017.

“Preaching to the Choir? Obrecht’s Motet for the Dedication of the Church.” In Music and Culture in the Middle Ages and Beyond: Liturgy, Sources, Symbolism, edited by David Rothenberg and Benjamin Brand, 263-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

 

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

“Josquin in Rome.” Invited virtual pre-concert lecture for the virtual concert by Cappella Pratensis at the Laus Polyphoniae Festival in Antwerp, Belgium, August 2020.

♫ Symposium Missa aurea. Organizer and moderator for this one-day symposium sponsored by the early music Laus Polyphoniae Festival of Flanders and the Alamire Foundation in Antwerp, Belgium, August 2019.

♫ “The Missa aurea Triptych: The Missae Ecce ancilla Domini by Ockeghem, Du Fay, and Regis.” Three invited pre-concert lectures for concerts by Cappella Mariana, Cappella Pratensis, and Stile Antico at the Laus Polyphoniae Festival in Antwerp, Belgium, August 2019.

O Dulciz Maria: Listening to a Late Medieval Ivory Relief.” Paper read on the session “Renaissance Materialities in the Museum of Renaissance Music – Objects” at the Medieval and Renaissance International Music Conference in Basel, Switzerland, July 2019.

 Celebrating the Census-Catalogue at 40: Manuscript Studies Past, Present, and Future. Co-organizer (with Jessie Ann Owens and Honey Meconi) for this four-session event at the Medieval and Renaissance International Music Conference in Basel, Switzerland, July 2019.

“A Saint’s Translation: Reading Musical and Visual Relics of Mary Magdalene from the Renaissance.” Invited lecture for the Department of Music and The Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University in Atlanta, March 2019.

Cum angelis et archangelis: Singing a Sacramental Cosmology in the Medieval Christian West.” Invited paper read at the international conference Full of Your Glory: Liturgy, Cosmos, Creation, Yale University, Institute of Sacred Music, June 2018.

 

Awards, Fellowships & Grants

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

Diapason d’Or Découverte (Challenge Records International, February, 2010) (for the DVD+CD Missa de Sancto Donatiano (Bruges 1487) by Jacob Obrecht, with Cappella Pratensis)

NEH Fellowship for University and College Teachers, January–December 2002

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)
Chair, American Musicological Board of Director’s Nominating Committee (2007)
Editorial Board Member, Journal of the American Musicological Society (2005–2009)
Director-at-Large, Board of the American Musicological Society (2000–2002)