About
Leon Chisholm studied applied music and musicology in Canada and the United States, obtaining a PhD in historical musicology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. His dissertation research, funded in part by the Cini Foundation in Venice, concerned the mechanization of polyphonic vocal idioms brought about by the rise of lute and keyboard playing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the School of Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Previously, he held postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, the Humboldt University Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, CRC 980, “Epistemes in Motion,” at the Free University Berlin, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, and the Italian Academy at Columbia University.
Leon’s recent work has focused on projects concerning the long history of the keyboard interface, the social construction of timbre in organ building, the material origins of musical style and concepts in early modern Europe, and the circulation of Corelli’s sonatas in eighteenth-century Scottish fiddling. In addition to his academic research, Leon is a software developer and practicing musician specializing in organs and historical keyboards. Education
Ph.D. in Music History and Literature, UC Berkeley
M.A. in Music History and Literature, UC Berkeley
M.M. in Organ Performance, Arizona State University
B.Mus.(Hons.), Memorial University of Newfoundland Publications
Edited Volume
“The Keyboard as a Musical Interface,” special issue guest-edited for
Keyboard Perspectives 12 (2019-20) [forthcoming].
Articles
“Rethinking the Beginnings of Basso Continuo: A Materialist Defense of Redundancy” Musiktheorie. Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 34.1 (2019): 43-54.
“William McGibbon and the Vernacularization of Corelli’s Sonatas, Op. 5,”
Eighteenth-Century Music 15.2 (2018): 143-76.
“
Microtonal Keyboard Instruments in the Early Modern Period” (
Sound & Science: Digital Histories, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science).
Dissertation
Keyboard Playing and the Mechanization of Polyphony in Italian Music, Circa 1600 , University of California, Berkeley, 2015
Reviews
William McGibbon: Complete Sonatas, edited by Elizabeth C. Ford (2018), Eighteenth-Century Music 17(2) (2020): 271–73.
Smith & Handel, Julian Perkins (harpsichord), Chandos 0807 (2015),
Eighteenth-Century Music 14(2) (2017): 318-20.
Entanglements: Conversations on the Human Traces of Science, Technology, and Sound by Simone Tosoni with Trevor Pinch (2017),
ICON 23 (2017): 195-97.
Liner Notes
Brandywine Baroque. Arcangelo Corelli Violin Sonatas Op. 5, Nos. 1-6. Plectra PL21002-CD, 2010.
Edited Conference Proceedings
Ki Adams, Leon Chisholm, & Andrea Rose, eds.,
Sharing the Voices: The Phenomenon of Singing IV: Proceedings of the International Symposium, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, June 26-29, 2003. St. John’s, NL, Canada: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005.
Andrea Rose, Ki Adams, & Leon Chisholm, eds.,
Sharing the Voices: The Phenomenon of Singing III: Proceedings of the International Symposium, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, June 28-July 1, 2001.
St. John’s, NL, Canada: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002.
Upcoming Talks and Conferences
Plenary Session at Diversity and Belonging: Unsung Keyboard Stories, Annual Conference of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, Ann Arbor, MI, 26-30 January 2022.
