ELSA DE LUCA is a scholar of early music specialising in plainchant music scripts. She is also actively engaged in the development of digital tools for computer-assisted research in early music, focusing primarily on databases and automatic music encoding. 

Elsa is Principal Investigator of the FCT-funded research project Echoes from the Past: Unveiling a Lost Soundscape with Digital Analysis (2022.01957.PTDC, https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.01957.PTDC), which runs from March 2023 to February 2026 and was awarded €249,506.19 in funding. Echoes was ranked first in the 2022 Portuguese national call for research projects in the 'Arts' category. 

Elsa serves as Executive Secretary of the Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music (CESEM). She is also Treasurer of the Portuguese Society for Research in Music (SPIM), Coordinator of the Portuguese Early Music Database and Co-Director of the book series Musicalia Antiquitatis & Medii Aevi, published by Brepols. In 2023, she joined CESEM's editorial committee and became one of the review editors for the Portuguese Journal of Musicology new series.

She has published in Early Music History, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, MusikTheorie, Revue de Musicologie, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, Portuguese Journal of Musicology, among others. Elsa co-edited, with A. Miguélez and E. Loic, a special issue of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (14/1, 2022) titled Connecting the Dots: New Research Paradigms for Iberian Manuscripts as Material Objects. She also co-edited the Proceedings of the Music Encoding Conference, Tufts University 26-29 May 2020, with J. Flanders. Together with I. Moody and J. F. Goudesenne, she has co-edited two volumes on the palaeography of plainchant in the medieval West (published in 2023) and East (forthcoming in 2025). Over the years, Elsa has contributed to ten research projects across Italy, France, Portugal, the UK, and Canada.

Main areas of teaching

Music paleography and codicology

Music encoding (early music)

Music history and analysis (medieval and renaissance music)

Historical performance practice

Keywords

Neumatic music scripts

Liturgical chant

Transmission of early medieval chant

Text-music interactions in chant

Digital Humanities applied to musicological research

Iberian Peninsula

Teaching

Elsa welcomes new research students with a broad interest in early music.

IDs

ORCID ID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8020-2697  

Scopus Author ID 56950314800                                                                              

Google Scholar ID z4swOJQAAAAJ&hl

CIÊNCIA ID 051E-2F38-CA4C

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Doutora Elsa De Luca

Investigadora em música antiga no CESEM - FCSH NOVA Universidade Nova de Lisboa  

ELSA DE LUCA é investigadora na área da música antiga, especializada em notações para cantochão. A Elsa Está também trabalha no desenvolvimento de ferramentas informáticas e digitais (sobretudo bases de dados e codificação musical automática) para suporte à investigação musicológica. 

É investigadora principal do projecto financiado pela FCT Echoes from the Past: Unveiling a Lost Soundscape with Digital Analysis (2022.01957.PTDC, https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.01957.PTDC), cujo orçamento é € 250.000 e que decorre entre 03/2023 e 02/2026. O projecto Echoes foi classificado em primeiro lugar no concurso nacional de projectos de investigação na área das Artes (edição de 2022).

Elsa é Secretária Executiva do Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM). É também Tesoureira da Sociedade Portuguesa de Investigação em Música (SPIM), Coordenadora da Portuguese Early Music Database e Co-directora da colecção Musicalia Antiquitatis & Medii Aevi, publicada pela Brepols. Em 2023, Elsa integrou o comité editorial do CESEM e passou a integrar a equipa de editores de recensões da nova série da Portuguese Journal of Musicology.

Publicou em revistas como Early Music History, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, MusikTheorie, Revue de Musicologie, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, Portuguese Journal of Musicology, entre outras. Elsa co-editou, com A. Miguélez e E. Loic, um número especial do Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (14/1, 2022), intitulado Connecting the Dots: New Research Paradigms for Iberian Manuscripts as Material Objects. Co-editou igualmente, com J. Flanders, os Proceedings of the Music Encoding Conference, Tufts University 26-29 May 2020. Em colaboração com I. Moody e J. F. Goudesenne, co-editou dois volumes sobre paleografia do cantochão no Ocidente medieval (publicado em 2023) e no Oriente (com publicação prevista para 2025). Ao longo dos anos, Elsa colaborou em dez projectos de investigação em Itália, França, Portugal, Reino Unido e Canadá.

PHOTO CREDIT 

The lovely images you see on this website come from the early tenth century 'León Antiphoner' (E-L MS 8) available here