Invited speakers are Dr Ainoa Castro Correa (Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History, King’s College London) as expert on Visigothic script, Prof. Carmen Julia Gutierrez (Professor of Musicology at the Universidade Complutense of Madrid), Dr Rose Walker (Independent scholar) as expert on Mozarabic illumination and Dr Elsa De Luca (CESEM) music palaeographer with expertise on Old Hispanic notation.

Within the wider context of Western sacred music, Old Hispanic Chant is the pre-Gregorian repertory which is preserved most completely and has few Gregorian contaminations. Surviving Old Hispanic musical manuscripts may unveil important information about the Western liturgical chant before the Carolingian reform. However, the complexity deriving from the non-pitched notation of OH manuscripts and the impossibility of transcribing their music into modern score have discouraged scholars from untangling their contents and unveiling their secrets.

Despite their importance, only in recent years have OH musical manuscripts become the object of systematic investigation. The research made in the context of the ‘Old Hispanic Office Project’ at the University of Bristol has demonstrated that these neglected manuscripts have the potential to lead to crucial discoveries about medieval music, liturgy, and palaeography.

With this Workshop we aim to build a new bridge between Medieval Iberia and modern scholars. With the expertise offered by our four speakers, we aim to provide the participants with basic training to tackle Old Hispanic musical manuscripts and understand their contents. Our ultimate goal is to encourage attendees to keep studying these manuscripts after the Workshop and to establish an international network of scholars interested on Old Hispanic chant and script.

Funding from ‘Plainsong and Medieval Music Society’ will be used to offer some travel bursaries to enable qualified students to attend. For more information please contact elsa@campus.ul.pt