released 8/28/2020

Remi Chiu’s 2017 book, Plague and Music in the Renaissance, examines “how traditional beliefs about music became embroiled in the new discourses about plague and how established musical styles, techniques, and practices were marshaled up to combat the disease.” Chiu talks with Ken Myers about that history and about how our response to a pandemic bears some likenesses to responses in the 15th and 16th centuries.

29 minutes

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Related reading and listening

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