The Leuven Chansonnier: Researching and Valorizing Franco-Flemish Polyphony with High-Technology Tools

The discovery in 2015 of the fifteenth-century songbook now known as the Leuven Chansonnier (LC) counts as one of the most sensational finds for early music sources in recent times. The present project will join academic and music practice research with social and educational valorisation of this manuscript and of related chansonniers, thus developing a methodology for the unlocking of polyphony in general. The project will be interdisciplinary, involving musicologists, musicians, (art and literary) historians, linguists and engineers. It will serve as a test case for the further development of the ‘Integrated Database for Early Music’, including, the automatic transcription tool TAMIR. The content of the Chansonnier will be analysed and studied in the high-tech sound lab that forms part of the ‘Library of Voices’. The research results will be valorised in cultural and educational activities developed within the ‘House of Polyphony’ for local, regional, national and international dissemination.

Keywords:early music, music manuscript, digital humanities, sound technology

Disciplines:History of music, Musicology and ethnomusicology, Heritage not elsewhere classified, Multimedia processing not elsewhere classified