We welcome abstracts for an edited collection published on the musical culture of William Byrd to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death in 2023. The collection, co-edited by Samantha Bassler, Katherine Butler, and Katie Bank, will feature 10–15 essays dealing with the state of Byrd studies in the 21st century. We are hoping to attract both established and junior scholars of Byrd’s music and early modern English culture, with topics that engage with the evolution of Byrd research since 1923 and also newer trends in scholarship such as digital musicology and public engagement.
Other topics we would like to include:
● Byrd in 1923 vs Byrd in 2023
● Byrd and Historiography
● Performance practice
● New research in Byrd’s religious music
● New research in Byrd’s recreational/domestic music
● Byrd in the contemporary English imagination
● Byrd and Antiquarianism
● Byrd in the Public Eye
● Byrd and Popular Culture
● Byrd in the Digital Age
● Byrd as Interdisciplinary Subject
● Literary Byrd
● Socio-cultural approaches to Byrd and his world
Since the timeline is coming up rather quickly, and we would very much like to meet a 2023 publication deadline, the essays would be on the shorter side (ca 5,000–7,000 words) and would need to be submitted by early Autumn/fall 2022 for a publication by mid-2023. If you are interested in participating, we ask you to submit an abstract of approximately 300 words, detailing the topic, methodology, and argument for your article by 1st March 2021. Please submit your abstract to Samantha Bassler at s.e.bassler@merton.oxon.org
If there are other Byrd events or collections already in the planning stages, we would very much like to be involved and to help support the Byrd scholarly community as we bring attention to this important anniversary. We were also hoping to put together a concert and a conference that relates to any work that is being published on Byrd, and to coordinate sessions at the Medieval and Renaissance Music conferences in 2021, 2022, and 2023.