Prof Karen Desmond, an internationally recognised scholar in medieval musicology, delivered her inaugural lecture at Maynooth University, titled "Medieval Parchment Fragments and Musical Reconstruction: Building New Histories of Music for the Later Middle Ages."
The event, held in Renehan Hall on Tuesday, 19 November, marked an important milestone for Professor Desmond, who joined the Department of Music and Faculty of Arts and Humanities in 2023 from Brandeis University in Massachusetts, USA.
Prof Desmond is the Principal Investigator of BROKENSONG: Polyphonic Singing and Communities of Music Writing in Medieval Britain and Ireland, c. 1150 to c. 1350, a five-year European Research Council project supported by a €2 million Consolidator Grant.
The project investigates the social and cultural contexts of medieval music writing, drawing on sources from Ireland and Britain, and highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and digital methodologies.
In her lecture, Prof Desmond explored how fragmentary parchment manuscript books and scrolls from the later Middle Ages can be pieced together to provide fresh insights into musical practices, technologies and communities of the time. She highlighted the role of interdisciplinary collaboration and digital methodologies in advancing this work.
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“I am delighted to deliver this lecture today and introduce my research to our community. The discipline and methods of historical study can elevate lost voices of the past – the voices of those busy and active musicians and scribes who carefully left their mark on the world, and whose work as musicians and documentarians was central and important to the communities in which they lived," Prof Desmond said.
"BROKENSONG not only reconstructs lost melodic lines within individual compositions, but also makes progress towards reconstructing lost musical cultures, and makes new connections to the humans involved in music making and creative practice from over eight hundred years ago.”
The event began with welcome remarks from Prof Eeva Leinonen, President of Maynooth University who highlighted the significance of inaugural lectures in the university’s academic tradition:
"An inaugural lecture, like today’s, serves as a platform to showcase academic achievement, foster dialogue within both the academic and broader community, and offer newly appointed professors an opportunity to share their scholarly vision. They are an important event for both the individual and our institution, highlighting the expertise and intellectual contributions that strengthen our university. Prof Desmond is an exemplary member of our community, and her research embodies our commitment to scholarship that both honours and reimagines our heritage,” she said.
Prof Desmond’s contributions to the field of musicology have been widely recognised. Her monograph, Music and the Moderni, 1300-1350: The Ars Nova in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2018), received the American Musicological Society’s prestigious Lewis Lockwood Award in 2019 for outstanding scholarship. In addition to her ERC grant, she has secured several other major grants and fellowships, including three awards from the US National Endowment for the Humanities.
Learn more about her work here.
