TITLE: The Library as Witness to Music History: The Case of the Sinai Musical Manuscripts
SPEAKER: Svetlana Kujumdzieva
EVENT DATE: 05/06/2010
RUNNING TIME: 55 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Dr. Kujumdzieva believes that the Library of Congress' microfilmed collection of musical manuscripts from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, are representative of music from the Byzantine era and, by extension, for all Orthodox music that entered the orbit of Byzantine Christian civilization. In her talk, she will examine Byzantine music in its various stages and how it is contextualized in these manuscripts in order to answer some basic questions. Exactly what was chanted in these early times? What were the earliest assembled books to include medieval chant repertories and how did these repertories grow from the sources? How was the music notated and how was it transmitted in the Eastern Orthodox world? By answering these and other questions, Kujumdzieva will discuss why the Sinai manuscripts were microfilmed and why they are so important in the history of music.
Speaker Biography: Svetlana Kujumdzieva is a professor at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and a 2009-2010 Kluge Fellow.
