Approaches to Ancient Greek Music

To access recordings of the lecture series and recital, please visit the Approaches to Ancient Music Seminar 2025 playlist on YouTube.

Full Lecture List

An Introduction to Ancient Greek Music

Armand D'Angour (Jesus College)

Should we try to hear Ancient Greek Music?

Approaches to Melodic Patterns Preserved in Pitch Accents

Thyra-Lilja Altunin (Brasenose College)

"Sing, Oh Muse": On the Path of Reconstructing the Melodic Pattern of Ancient Greek Poetic Songs

 

Anna Conser (University of Cincinnati)

A Deadly Marriage Hymn: The Musical Design of Medea Stasimon 4

Music on the Ancient Stage

Maggie Tighe (Christ Church College

The New Music of Euripides' Hypsipyle

 

Christopher Colby (Jesus College)

Rhythm and Metre in Homer

Ancient Musical Philosophy: Plato to Boethius

Belle Rockett (New College)

Some Melody Previously Heard: The Song of Philosophy in Boethius's Consolatio

 

Andrew Hicks (Cornell University)

Sound Signifying in Boethius' De institutione musica

The Oxyrhynchus Musical Papyri and their Context

Amin Benaissa (Christ Church College)

Musical and performance Culture in Oxyrhynchus

 

Cara Nicol (Jesus College)

Melodic Pitch Accentual Conformity in the Oxyrhynchus Musical Papyri

Workshop

John Franklin (University of Vermont)

How to Read Ancient Greek Musical Notation

Composition and the Reception of Ancient Musical Traditions

Alex Silverman (Jesus College)

Mime, Metre, Music: Interpreting and Performing the Dochmiacs of the Fragmentum Grenfellianum

 

Felipe Aguirre Quintero (Conservatorio Superior de Música de las Islas Baleares)

A Reconstruction of the Concept of ἑρμηνεία in Ancient Greek Music

Archaeomusicology and Performance on Ancient Instruments

Callum Armonstrong (The Aulos Collective)

Looking at the Aulos from an Early Music Perspective

 

Stefan Hagel (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Candace's Aulos Puzzle: Doublepipes from Ancient Africa

 

Barnaby Brown (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)

Rhythms of Tongue and Toe: Engaging with the Conceptions of Ancient Grammarians and how this Impacts Aulos-Led Song-Dance

Workshop in Collaboration with Lotos Lab

Barnaby Brown

Make Your Own Classical Aulos

Recital

The seminar concludes with a performance in which we showcase the musical results of our approaches to resuscitating elements of ancient music. In this recital we exhibit a variety of types of music and a range out sounds which include performances of surviving fragments, attempts at authentic reconstruction of the music, poetic musical text, and diverse new compositions and recompositions that take inspiration from the ancient musical tradition.