Michael Alan Anderson

Michael Alan Anderson received his Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music from the University of Chicago in 2008 and is author of the book St. Anne in Renaissance Music: Devotion and Politics (forthcoming from Cambridge, 2013). He specializes in a wide range of issues related to western liturgical music from the central Middle Ages through the sixteenth century, with emphasis on the saints and lay devotion. Anderson is the 2012 winner of the Noah Greenberg Award, given by the American Musicological Society for outstanding contributions to historical performance practices. In the same year, he also received the Deems Taylor Award (presented by the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers) for his 2011 article published in Early Music History that illuminates Midsummer rituals referenced in thirteenth-century motets. Other awards include the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, the Alvin H. Johnson American Musicological Society 50 Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Grace Frank Grant (Medieval Academy of America), the Whiting Foundation Fellowship (University of Chicago), and several travel and research grants.

Besides Early Music History, Anderson’s articles have appeared in Early Music, Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Studi musicali. He sits on the editorial board of two textbooks published by W.W. Norton (The History of Western Music, 9th edition [ed. Burkholder] and Concise History of Western Music, 5th edition [ed. Hanning]). Since 2010, he has also served on the Editorial Board of the American Choral Review, the semiannual journal of the organization Chorus America. Anderson has further presented papers at the congress of the International Musicological Society (Rome), the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference (Vienna, Utrecht, and London), the national and local chapter meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Renaissance Society of America, the International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo), the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies.

Still an active performer, Anderson has served as Artistic Director of Schola Antiqua of Chicago since 2008, following the retirement of Calvin M. Bower, with whom he co-founded the organization in 2000. A professional vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of music before 1600, Schola Antiqua currently serves as Artists in Residence at the Lumen Christi Institute and has been the recipient of grants from the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, the Sage Foundation, and the Illinois Arts Council. The ensemble’s recordings have aired on the nationally syndicated broadcasts of With Heart and Voice, Millennium of Music, and Harmonia; they have also received reviews in Early Music America, Fanfare,the Journal of Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Notes (Music Library Association).

As a choral conductor, Anderson has further served as the Assistant Director of the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel Choir (2001-5) and as a guest conductor of the Notre Dame Glee Club. Meantime as a singer, Anderson performed with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, under the batons of Barenboim, Boulez, Penderecki, Mehta, Eschenbach, Rostropovich, and others in venues from Orchestra Hall and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago to Carnegie Hall and the Berlin Philharmonie. He has also received invitations to appear with the Boston Early Music Festival chamber ensemble, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Schola Cantorum of Christ Church (Rochester), Voices (Rochester), and Seraphic Fire (Miami).