Elsa De Luca

ELSA DE LUCA is an early music scholar pursuing research on medieval chant notations; she is also actively involved in the development of tools for computer-assisted research in early music (mainly databases and automatic music encoding). She is the PI of the FCT-funded research project Echoes from the Past: Unveiling a Lost Soundscape with Digital Analysis (2022.01957.PTDC, https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.01957.PTDC) running from 03/2023-02/2026, funding awarded € 249.506,19. ECHOES was ranked first in the 2022 Portuguese national call for research projects in the ‘Arts’ group.

Elsa De Luca is currently carrying out palaeographical research into Iberian medieval notation through the research project A pre-Gregorian musical repertory under scrutiny: neumes, scribes, and books of the Old Hispanic Chant (DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0085). Elsa has published articles on musical notation, cryptography, and liturgy in a selection of Iberian and French manuscripts (10th – 16th cent.) and on music encoding. Her research was published on Early Music History, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, MusikTheorie, Revue de Musicologie, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, Portuguese Journal of Musicology, etc. Elsa co-edited with A. Miguélez and E. Loic a special issue of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (14/1, 2022) Connecting the Dots: New Research Paradigms for Iberian Manuscripts as Material Objects. She co-edited the Proceedings of the Music Encoding Conference, Tufts University 26-29 May 2020, with J. Flanders. She co-edited with I. Moody and J.F. Goudesenne two books on the palaeography of plainchant from the medieval West (published in 2023) and East (forthcoming in 2025).

Elsa serves as member of the CESEM board of directors since 04/2023. In addition, Elsa is Treasurer of the Portuguese Society for Research in Music (SPIM); Coordinator of the Portuguese Early Music Database; co-director of the book series Musicalia Antiquitatis & Medii Aevi, published by Brepols (since 2018); and in 2023 she was invited to join the CESEM-FCSH editorial committee and the review editors for the Portuguese Journal of Musicology new series. Over the years, Elsa has collaborated in ten research projects in Italy, France, Portugal, the UK and Canada.