About us


Research has always been a key element of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis since it was explicitly founded as an “Institute for Teaching and Research in the Field of Early Music” in 1933.

Today the Research Department consists of permanent staff members, supported by colleagues from the teaching staff, and of research fellows of the projects. An important aim is to connect our research with current issues related to historical performance practice and thus to inform teaching at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis as well as to interact with the international community of musicology. These efforts are documented by numerous research projects and cooperations and are also aided by the scientific advisory board of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

Susan Leslie Boynton


Professor of Music, Columbia University (USA)


Susan Boynton has taught at Columbia University since 2000. Her research interests include liturgy and music in medieval Western monasticism, particularly the abbey of Cluny; manuscript studies; music in the Iberian peninsula; music and childhood; troubadour song; and music and the visual arts. Boynton’s research has been supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Academy in Rome, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Her three monographs are Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125 (2006), Silent Music: Medieval Song and the Construction of History in Eighteenth-Century Spain (2011), and Liturgy of Empire: Reading the Mozarabic Rite in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (2026). She has coedited volumes including Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of Youth (2006), coedited with Roe-Min Kok; Young Choristers, 600-1750 (2008), coedited with Eric Rice; The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages (2011) and Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music, and Sound (2015), both coedited with Diane J. Reilly.

More information: https://music.columbia.edu/bios/susan-boynton