[MEI-L] Freedman Renaissance Music Book Project launches

[Richard Freedman]

Dear Friends,



Just a short note to bring you up to date on the electronic Du Chemin  
project I've mentioned during our various MEI discussions.   First the  
good news:  the site is now available to the public.  I have been here  
in Tours since early May working with Vincent Besson and other members  
of the CESR staff to put finishing touches on editions, commentaries,  
and the web site itself, which we at last completed on Friday.  This  
week the CESR is hosting five days of reports and conversations on its  
various electronic projects, including the Du Chemin site.  In  
addition there are projects on the Mass, a chanson database, a new  
project that aims to create critical editions of the literary texts  
from the Du Chemin series, projects on singers, and on the emotions in  
relation to music.  It is a healthy array, and we hope to learn from  
each other about ways to bind these initiatives together.



To date, then, the Du Chemin project has managed to meet the goals set  
out in our Digital Humanities Start-up Grant from the NEH.  The site  
is fully functional, with lots of interesting features for browsing,  
searching, displaying, downloading transcriptions, and reading  
commentaries.  We have mounted a full book of transcriptions, several  
books of facsimiles, and all the commentaries, editorial policies, and  
related instructions.  We have two other books of transcriptions that  
are in the final stages of editing, and should go up by the end of the  
month of June.  Three more books of transcriptions are in the works.   
The site devoted to reconstructions of pieces with missing voice parts  
will now be sustained as an allied project at the CESR--the Atelier  
virtuelle de restitution polyphonique.   Our colleagues here plan  
another week-long session devoted to this (in various repertories) in  
October.



With help from some of the IT folks at Haverford, I have also been  
able to link two blogs to the site--one will be a public face of the  
project, inviting readers to ask questions, explore pedagogy, tell us  
about research projects, and generally let us know how they are using  
the resource.  The other blog will be for editors and advisors, and  
will serve as a way for us to keep track of important questions and  
discussions as we manage such projects.



Now the rest of the news:  I just learned on Friday that our  
application to the NEH for $110,000 to support the Du Chemin project  
was not successful .  I have asked for reader's reports, and will let  
you know what they said about the proposal.  We will consider other  
funding sources, and also strongly consider applying to the NEH again  
in the fall.  Meanwhile all of our work will continue in the years  
ahead.  Philippe Vendrix has secured considerable funding (in the  
region of 300,000 Euros) to keep all of these initiatives (including  
Du Chemin) moving forward over the course of the next two to three  
years.   I hope to bring members of the CESR to the US during the  
2010-2011 academic year to report on our work (perhaps we'll be able  
to gather at the AMS meeting in some way).



What's in this for MEI?  I know that Philippe Vendrix (dean of the  
CESR) is very interested in the possibilities offered by MEI for the  
presentation of critical editions and other digital representation of  
music editions.  He has a technical team that is already familiar with  
TEI (through their Bibliothèques virtuelles humanistes), and he has  
the resources to sustain such work over a multi-year horizon, with  
many publication projects in the works.  I think, in short, that the  
CESR could be an early adopter of some of the MEI techniques, and  
would offer a nice way to connect scholars (of early music in this  
case) with a publisher who is prepared to experiment with the system.   
I would be happy to put him in touch with you.  I think he would be  
prepared to host some representatives of the MEI project here at the  
CESR for discussions.



Here is the link to the Du Chemin site, and another to the Ricercar  
program's full array of digital initiatives:



http://ricercar.cesr.univ-tours.fr/3-programmes/EMN/Duchemin/



http://ricercar.cesr.univ-tours.fr/3-programmes/0430.htm



With continued thanks for your interest and involvement,



Richard





Richard Freedman
John C. Whitehead Professor of Music
Chair, Department of Music
Haverford College

rfreedma at haverford.edu
610-896-1007 (o)
610-896-4902 (f)