Honey Meconi

Honey Meconi

A specialist in music before 1600, Honey Meconi joined the faculty of the University of Rochester in 2004 as Professor of Music in the College Music Department and Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music.  She became Director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies in 2007, and was named Susan B. Anthony Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies in 2009. 

She is an expert on Renaissance music as well as on the music of Hildegard of Bingen (the twelfth-century polymath, poet, and composer), and is director of The Hildegard Project, a long-term undertaking to perform all of that composer’s music.  Her latest book, Hildegard of Bingen, will be published by the University of Illinois Press.  Other books include Pierre de la Rue and Musical Life at the Habsburg-Burgundian Court (Oxford University Press, 2003; reprint 2009) and the commentary volume to the facsimile edition of Brussels, Royal Library, Ms. IV.90 (Patrimonio Ediciones, 2007) as well as Early Musical Borrowing (editor, Routledge, 2004),  Fortuna desperata: 36 Settings of an Italian Song (editor, A-R Editions, 2001), and Medieval Music (editor, Ashgate, 2011).   She is currently writing a book on the cultural history of the chansonnier. 

Shorter publications include essays on Hildegard’s Lingua ignota, the editing history of Hildegard’s music and texts, Margaret of Austria’s chansonniers, the Segovia manuscript, the cultural history of the chansonnier, London Royal 8 G. vii, the Munich partbooks, extreme singing, Petrucci’s mass prints, the Habsburg-Burgundian court manuscripts, Josquin’s reputation, Fortuna desperata, motet-chansons, Absalon fili mi, art-song reworkings, imitatio, performance practice, the Basevi chansonnier, the Rochester Fascicle, and other topics.  She has been a Fulbright Fellow in Belgium, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and Fellow at the Villa I Tatti in Florence, and has received multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies, including a 2008–2009 Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities to study the cultural history of the chansonnier. 

Recipient of a 2006 Alumna Award from the Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture, she has served on the Board of Directors of the American Musicological Society, both as Director-at-Large and as Vice President.  In 2009 she joined the editorial board of Grove Music Online as Associate Editor, and in 2010 the Governing Board of US-RILM.  She is on the advisory boards of the Josquin Research Project and “Chansonniers of Nicholars Du Chemin: A Digital Forum for Renaissance Music Books.”  She has also served on the boards of Pegasus Early Music and Houston Early Music.  In 1998 she organized the interdisciplinary conference “Constructing Hildegard: Reception and Identity 1098–1998,” and in 2006–2007 she was an organizer of the panel/lecture/concert/workshop series “Women and Music: Looking Back, Looking Forward” co-sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies and the University of Rochester Humanities Project. 

A performer as well as a scholar, she began directing early music groups while a student at Indiana University.  She has since founded and directed ensembles at Harvard University (where she received her Ph.D.), Rice University (where she directed the Medieval Studies Program), and now at the University of Rochester.  As a singer of post-1600 music she has performed with, among others, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the professional Ensemble Vocal de la Radio-Télévision belge de la communauté française, and the Houston Symphony Chorus.  She is currently a member of Schola Cantorum.  With Vox Early Music Ensemble she was recipient of the 2006 Noah Greenberg Award given by the American Musicological Society “for distinguished contribution to the study and performance of early music.” 

Research interests include Pierre de la Rue and contemporaries; manuscripts, especially chansonniers; women and music, especially Hildegard of Bingen; Habsburg-Burgundian court music and manuscripts; borrowing; and extreme singing.  Courses taught include Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminated Music Manuscripts, Chansonniers, Women and Music, Colloquium in Women’s Studies, Shakespeare and Music, Opera, Medieval and Renaissance Music, Baroque Music, and numerous other subjects. 

Contact the Director:

Phone: (585) 275-8318
Email: honey.meconi@rochester.edu

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