Eric Rice
Music Historian,
Conductor of Choral and
Early-Music Ensembles,
Singer
Welcome! This
web site describes my professional activities. Though it contains much of the material on my CV, it does so
in a different format, providing links to sites with supplemental information
and sound files as samples of my work as a performer. Thanks for visiting.
Contents
Teaching
Research
Performing
Grants and Awards
Education
Other Employment
Contact
Information
Teaching
As a teacher, I am especially keen to convey what music,
through the immediacy of a performance, can tell us about the cultural milieu
in which it was created. Live
performances, both by course participants and outsiders, are staples in my
teaching.
Appointments to Date
Courses Taught
Potential Courses
Excerpts from Teaching Evaluations
Appointments to Date
University of Connecticut
(2003 – 2004)
Visiting Assistant Professor; Director, Collegium Musicum
Brandeis University
(2001 – 2003)
Assistant Professor (non-tenure track)
Columbia University
Preceptor, Department of Music (2000 – 2001)
Director, Collegium Musicum (1996 – 1999)
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Courses Taught
Graduate
Introduction to Renaissance Musical Scholarship
The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 1100 – 1600 (independent study)
The Musical Style of the Late-Sixteenth Century: Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria,
and Byrd
Undergraduate Specialist
History of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to 1700
Fundamentals of Western Music: notation, sight singing, and dictation
Undergraduate Non-Specialist
Music of J.S. Bach
American Music: New England psalm-singing to Run D.M.C.
Masterpieces of Western Music: From Plainsong to Today
Undergraduate Performance
Chamber Choir
Collegium Musicum
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Potential Courses
Undergraduate (Specialist or Non-Specialist)
Music and Politics in the Renaissance
Royal and papal
propaganda in music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Representations of the Other in Western Music, 1500 –
1900
Examines the means
composers used to represent foreign cultures in music and music dramas,
beginning with
sixteenth-century court entertainment and concluding with nineteenth-century
opera and symphonic works
Undergraduate or Graduate
The Historical Performance Movement: “Authenticity”
and Modernity
Examination of
the forces that led to the historical performance movement, the movement’s
implications, ongoing debates,
reception, and
significance; additional attention to the role of non-Western music and jazz
in questions of “authenticity”
and popular culture
Music and the Culture of Print in the Sixteenth Century
The dissemination
of music in print from 1500 to 1600 and the impact of printing on musical
literacy, entrepreneurship,
and the expression
of humanistic ideas
From Source to Sound: The Interpretation of Early Notation
Offered either
in a two-semester sequence (from Musica Enchiriadis through
Franco of Cologne and then from
Philippe de Vitry
through sixteenth-century tablatures) or in one semester (from Aquitanian
polyphony through Ockeghem);
book production,
scribal practices, and practical aspects of performance
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Excerpts from Teaching Evaluations
“This course was one of the best I’ve had at
Brandeis, mainly because it was so well-organized and challenging. Prof. Rice was very good at getting us
to think critically about the readings, and his feedback on the weekly assignments
was invaluable. He also did a
great job of incorporating analysis into what could have been a strictly historical
seminar. This class has left
me enthusiastic about the Renaissance, whether my future engagement with the
period involves further study or teaching.”
— Graduate Student in “Introduction to Renaissance
Musical Scholarship” at Brandeis
“Prof. Rice is incredibly interested in and excited
about the topic and passes that on to his students. He has an incredible ability to motivate his students to work
harder and be better.”
“One of the most well-prepared, direct, and clear professors
I have had at Brandeis. While
he approaches his job with professionalism and confidence, he allows enough
student input and discussion to make him very approachable.”
— Undergraduate students in the Brandeis Chamber Choir
“I highly recommend my section because my professor
was really open and attune to students’ needs. I came in fearing my inexperience would hinder, but have subsequently
gained immensely from the course.”
— Undergraduate in “Masterpieces of Western Music,”
an
appreciation course at Columbia
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Research
My research interests include liturgical music, particularly
that of the late middle ages and Renaissance; the relationship of music to
architectural space; music and politics; notation, theory, and performance
practices of medieval, Renaissance, and early baroque music; and issues of
musical identity, particularly representations of non-Western cultures in
common-practice period Western music.
Dissertation
Publications
Current Projects
Conference Papers and Invited Lectures
Dissertation
“Music and Ritual in the Collegiate Church of Saint
Mary in Aachen, 1300 – 1600,” Columbia University, 2002
Publications
“The Role of Acoustics in the Performance of Renaissance
Polyphony at the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Aachen”
Forthcoming in Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Congress of
the International Musicological Society, Leuven, Belgium, 1 – 7 August,
2002, to be published by the Alamire Foundation
Book review: Singing Early Music - The Pronunciation of
European Languages in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Timothy McGee et al.
Current Musicology 64 (2001): 159 – 168
“Zur Musik und Musikpraxis für das Karlsfest im
Aachener Dom” in
Federstrich: liturgische Handschriften des ehemaligen Stiftsbibliothek
(Eupen: Druckerei Grenz-Echo, 2000): 45 – 55
“Representations of Janissary Music (Mehter) as Musical Exoticism in Western Compositions, 1670
- 1824”
Journal of Musicological Research 19
(1999): 41 – 88
“Tradition and Imitation in Pierre Certon’s Déploration for Claudin de Sermisy”
Revue de Musicologie 85/1 (1999):
29 – 62
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Current Projects
“Liturgical Responses to the Counter-Reformation at
the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Aachen, 1570 - 1580“
“Choirboys, Performance, and the Experience of Childhood
in the Early Modern Period”
“Representation of Ethnicity and Gender in the Moresche of Orlando di Lasso”
Conference Papers and Invited Lectures
“Spanish Identity in Sixteenth-Century Rome and Victoria’s
‘Spanish Manner’”
Spring Meeting of the American Musicological Society, New York Chapter, April
12, 2003
“Liturgical Responses to the Protestant Reformation
at the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Aachen, 1570 – 1580”
Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University, February 28, 2003
“The Role of Acoustics in the Performance of Renaissance
Polyphony at the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Aachen”
Seventeenth International Congress of the International Musicological Society,
Leuven, Belgium, 2002
“Aachen’s Coronation Rites in Text, Sound, and Space”
Annual Conference of the Medieval Academy of America, New York, 2002
“The Geography of the Liturgy of Aachen Before and
After the Construction of the Collegiate Church’s Gothic Choir”
International Medieval Congress, Leeds, England, 2001
“Zur Musikpraxis des Mittelalters und der Renaissance
im Aachener Dom”
Aachen Cathedral, 2000
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Performing
I aim to combine my research and teaching with performance
as much as possible. As a conductor
of college ensembles, I construct programs that complement concurrent curricula
or student interests. As a singer,
I have engaged with the notation and techniques of the past, and I strive
to experience the liturgical music I study in a liturgical context whenever
possible.
Recent Conducting
Recent Singing
Recent Conducting
Brandeis Chamber Choir (18 voices)
“Shir hashirim:
The Song of Songs in the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant Traditions”
– March 30, 2003
Works by Dunstaple, Brumel, Palestrina, Rossi, Billings, Sulzer, Walton,
and
Yehudi Wyner (Hear Wyner’s
Shir hashirim, sung with
the Bowdoin
Chamber
Choir in this performance)
“J.S. Bach and the German Choral Heritage” –
November 24, 2002
Works by Isaac, Walther, Hassler, Praetorius, Schütz, J. Michael
Bach,
Buxtehude,
and J.S. Bach
Collegium Musicum of Columbia University (24 voices, instruments)
“O spes afflictis -
Saints and Sinners in Sixteenth-Century Polyphony of the Low Countries”
– December 12, 1998
Works
by Gombert, Manchicourt, Crecquillon, Lupi, Clemens non Papa, and Mangon
(Hear
an excerpt from Mangon’s Magnificat primi toni
from this performance)
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Recent Singing
Exsultemus,
Cambridge, MA
Tenor with vocal ensemble performing a mass and motets by Francisco Guerrero
on the Society of Historically Informed Performance concert series (July
2003) (Hear Guerrero's
Alma redemptoris materfrom this performance)
Capella
Alamire, Cambridge, MA
Tenor with vocal ensemble performing fifteenth- and sixteenth-century repertory
from original notation under the direction of musicologist Peter Urquhart
(2002 – 2003)
Church
of Saint Ignatius of Antioch (Episcopal),
New York, NY
Tenor/countertenor for eight-voice professional choir singing Gregorian propers,
polyphonic masses and motets (2000 – 2001, 1998 – 1999)
The Bach Society of Columbia University
Tenor aria for BWV 206; Evangelist for performance of Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium (2000)
Aachener
Domchor, Aachen, Germany.
Countertenor for 100-voice choir (1999 – 2000)
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Grants and Awards
President’s Fellowships, Columbia University
(1995 – 1999, 2000 – 2001)
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
– dissertation research grant (1999
– 2000)
Columbia Braer Fellowship to outstanding student of church music
(1999 – 2000)
Columbia Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching – Finalist (1998,
1999)
A.W. Mellon Travel and Research Fellowship for dissertation research
(1998)
Bowdoin College Andrew Allison Haldane Award for excellence in leadership
(1991)
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Education
Columbia
University (1995 – 2002)
Ph.D. in Musicology “with distinction,” 2002
Dissertation: “Music and Ritual in the Collegiate Church of Saint
Mary in Aachen, 1300 - 1600”
Sponsor:
Leeman
Perkins
Certificate in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001
Certificate
essay: “Singing the Crusade: A Preliminary Study of Music and Liturgy
as Crusade Propaganda, 1095 - 1140”
M.Phil. in Musicology, 1998
M.A. in Musicology, 1997
Master’s
essays: “Representations of Janissary Music (Mehter) as Musical Exoticism in Western Compositions, 1670 - 1824”; “Reconciliation
and Religion in the Adagio of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony”
Bowdoin College
(1987 – 1991)
A.B. Cum Laude in English and
music, French minor, 1991
High
Honors for thesis: “Ben Jonson’s The Masque of Queens:
a Reconstruction and Performance with Music”
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Other Employment
My interest in the history of music is to some extent complemented
by my interest in maritime history, which led me to a short career as a marine
educator and schooner captain between college and graduate school.
South Street Seaport Museum,
New York
Director of Marine Education; Master, Schooner Lettie
G. Howard (1995)