July/August 2010
Around the Quads
Five Minutes with … Susan Boynton
Susan Boynton is an associate professor of music and chair of Music Humanities. Her research focuses on liturgical music in medieval Western monasticism, monastic education and the role of women in medieval song. The recipient of two Fulbrights, a Rome Prize, an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship and a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, she has been teaching at Columbia since 2000. Boynton earned her bachelor’s from Yale and her Ph.D. from Brandeis.
Where did you grow up?
New York City.
What did you want to be growing up?
When I was in high school, I was interested in being a pianist, but I liked writing about music, so in college, I thought I’d be interested in being a music historian, a classicist or something like that.
Do you still play piano?
Yes. I have a grand piano at home. I do some informal performances. I’ve done little concerts here and at home.
What kind of music did you listen to growing up?
I listened to classical music. My father sang in a lot of choirs and was a very good piano player. My grandmother was a voice teacher and a singer. I heard a lot of early music and choral music growing up, so I grew interested in that.
How did you come to Columbia?
I used to teach at the University of Oregon. That was my first job after I got my doctorate. I was invited to apply for a job here in 2000, and that was it. I was very glad to come home to New York. The West Coast seemed very far away. My whole family lives in New York.
What classes will you teach in the fall?
Music Hum and a new pedagogy class that’s for music department graduate students. It’s combined with a professional development program including classes on C.V. writing, grant writing, the job market, publications and so forth.
Where do you see Music Hum fitting into a rounded liberal arts education?
Music is very much part of a liberal education. When people learn to analyze a painting in Art Hum, the object is visual; in Music Hum, it’s a sonic object. Music is the text. As in Lit Hum, where people learn to read texts closely and take apart a text, they learn that with music in Music Hum. Texts are not limited to verbal texts. Texts also are visual and musical.
What are you working on?
I recently finished a book on a Jesuit in the 18th century who was studying medieval manuscripts of music in Toledo Cathedral from 1750–55 and working with a calligrapher who made incredible facsimiles of the manuscripts. The Jesuit was involved in many different things, and I was just focusing on that one aspect of his work. His work started as a political project, a Spanish government commission to transcribe archival documents that they would use in negotiations with the Vatican regarding the crown’s claims on ecclesiastical property both in Spain and in the new world. As a larger historical project, it concerned the history of Spanish patrimony and cultural legacy.
Where do you live?
Broadway and 111th Street.
Are you married? Do you have kids?
I am married to Jens Ulff-Moller, who also teaches at Columbia. We have a 2-year-old daughter.
Did you and your husband meet at Columbia?
We met at a medieval conference in Kalamazoo, Mich. It’s this huge conference every year in May when the dorms at Western Michigan are available. It now has about 4,000 people a year. People from Europe, the Pacific Rim, all over the world come to Kalamazoo.
To non-medievalists, it’s probably weird, but to any medievalist, it’s a household name. I actually know a number of people who met their spouses in Kalamazoo.
What is something your students would never guess about you?
I used to dance ballet.
How do you recharge?
I do yoga.
If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be?
It’s a tie between Rome and Madrid. I spent a lot of time at the Academy in Rome. My second book is on this Jesuit in Toledo, and because the materials are preserved mostly in Madrid, I spent a lot of time there too.
What’s your favorite place in New York City?
The promenade by the Hudson near West 100th Street in Riverside Park.
What’s your favorite food?
Indian.
What on your resume are you most proud of?
The Rome Prize, a fellowship to go to The American Academy in Rome for a year.
What music are you listening to?
Lately, a lot of children’s music! We also watch a lot of DVDs of ballet and opera. Right now, my favorite is an amazing DVD of The Rite of Spring and The Firebird of Stravinsky with wonderful reconstructions of the original choreography and a fantastic orchestra performance.
Can you recommend a musical event in New York?
The concert series of early music at The Cloisters in a beautiful chapel, and a series at Corpus Christi Catholic Church on West 121st Street.
Interview and photo: Ethan Rouen ’04J
Professor Susan Boynton talks about how New York City augments Music Hum coursework.