Mission Statement

Early Musics Skills and Resources is an AMS Study Group which aims to coordinate and energize the study of musical practices from before around 1600 by focusing on the skills necessary to teach and undertake research into musics of the distant past. The term “Early Musics” signals a desire to embrace diverse musical traditions from around the globe, including hybrid practices that emerged from trans-continental, socio-cultural, and commercial movements and routes. Research into early musics continues to be vital, vitally important, and importantly challenging for the future. Members of this group share not only an interest in studying and teaching these musical traditions, but a commitment to facilitating the specialist training and interdisciplinary collaboration upon which so much successful work depends. 

By focusing on skills rather than output, the Study Group complements early music sessions at the national meeting of the AMS, creating space to discuss the “how” of early music research. Our goal is to facilitate knowledge of and access to extracurricular opportunities and to act as a central networking hub for scholars, teachers, students, and performers to develop further training opportunities.

Announcements

September ESMR Newsletter

The latest Study Group Newsletter is available here. If you have news that you would like to share about publications, awards, CFPs, job opportunities, etc., please let us know so that we can include these items in upcoming communications. You can email the officers at ams.srem@gmail.com.

This month, the newsletter covers the following topics:

• Upcoming EMSR Events & Announcements
  • October 15: Business Meeting & “Five Ways of Looking at a Tudor Singer”
  • September 24:Early Music 101, Session I: “What is Archival Research”
    • October 29: Session II: “What is a Source”
    • December 10: Session III: “Filling Up Your Research Toolkit” 
  • AMS Early Music Program Fund Application Process
  • Early Music @ AMS 2026 (Online)
• Announcements
  • PMMS Reading Group
  • KU Leuven Music Seminars 
  • Society for Music Analysis: Zoom Colloquium Series
  • Call for Papers: “Boethius and His Afterlives”
  • Call for Papers: Medieval Song at Kalamazoo 2027
  • Call for Papers: Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, “Scandal”

Upcoming Deadlines:

Musica Franca Recruitment

The ERC-Starting Grant project MUSICA FRANCA (HORIZON-ERC, ID: 101219609) investigates the role music played as a shared medium of communication across medieval Europe, enabling texts and ideas to travel across linguistic and political borders.
Medieval poets and performers thought of melodic borrowing and re-use as constitutive to the process of creation. By investigating melodic imitation, intended as a range of techniques (from borrowing stylistic features to the reuse of entire melodies) in French, Galician-Portuguese, German, and Occitan lyric, from the 12th up to the first half of the 14th century, MUSICA FRANCA proposes to uncover a network which today appears to us as silent, but which profoundly shaped European intellectual history.

MUSICA FRANCA aims to create a lively environment for early-career researchers working on medieval lyric and its music across multiple vernacular traditions, fostering intellectual exchange and a shared commitment to excellence. It will provide a space to work, collaborate, and develop interdisciplinary skills combining philology, literary studies, musicology, and digital humanities, laying the foundations for innovative academic careers.

The team has two positions open:

1: One postdoctoral fellowship with a focus on Galician-Portuguese medieval lyrics and music (“Contratto di ricerca” 2, renewable for a further 2 years, 4th and highest tier, € 38.582 gross salary per year).
DEADLINE 15 October 2026: https://web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/bando/246632_bando-cdr-id-89/2026-prot-0119643

2.One postdoctoral fellowship with a focus on Middle High German lyrics and music (“Contratto di ricerca” 2, renewable for a further 2 years, 4th and highest tier, € 38.582 gross salary per year).
DEADLINE 17 October 2026: https://web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/dettaglio_bando_albo/246660

Although the call in in Italian, the application and interview may be conducted entirely in English. For more information, please contact Stefano Milonia (stefano.milonia@uniroma1.it).

Upcoming Events:

EMSR Fall Business Meeting, October 15th (4:00pm EST)

EMSR’s Fall Business Meeting will take place on October 15, 2026 at 4:00pm (EST) and will be held on Zoom. This year’s keynote will be delivered by Kerry McCarthy. Please register below to receive the link! 

Register here: https://fsu.zoom.us/meeting/register/THJ7gnn3SgSGEuDQCBLFug

Early Music 101 Dates and Topics 

EMSR is delighted to announce the Fall schedule for Early Music 101, a series of interactive online workshops aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduate students curious about musical practices before 1600, and at researchers interested in developing a secondary research area in early music. Early Music 101 will provide participants with a foundational understanding of what research in early music involves, focusing on the following topics: 

• Session II: What is a Source
  • Oct 29 (4:00EST) 
  • Mary Channen Caldwell and Giovanni Zanovello explore what counts as a “source” in early music research, examining the manuscripts, prints, and other materials that preserve musical practices from before 1600. The session demystifies how researchers read, interpret, and draw new knowledge from these documents and material objects, including early forms of notation and evidence of performance practice.
  • Register here: https://fsu.zoom.us/meeting/register/iZH3uCtzRvWsXAVEDmDDow
• Session III: Filling Up Your Research Toolkit
  • December 10 (4:00EST)
  • Jennifer Bain and Luisa Nardini survey the essential skills and resources of the early music researcher, from transcribing early notation to using digital repositories and databases. Participants will leave with a practical toolkit for launching their own research on pre-1600 musical traditions.
  • Register here: https://fsu.zoom.us/meeting/register/vbkFAdmCQPmFBhO0B06Yqg

Early Music @ AMS2026 (Online)

Our annual schedule of Early Music sessions and papers at AMS is now available here!

Officers