31 maggio


"Perché l’animo tuo tanto s’impiglia",

disse ’l maestro, "che l’andare allenti?

che ti fa ciò che quivi si pispiglia?

Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti:

sta come torre ferma, che non crolla

già mai la cima per soffiar di venti"

Purgatorio, V. Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri

maggio

La stagione più bella è quella in cui fiorisce la jacaranda (e le rose)

28 aprile 2024

Primavera tra gli ulivi pugliesi 

(qualcosa di tuo resta anche se te ne vai via)

#lemieradici   #paesaggifamiliari 


19 aprile 2024


Non sei italiano nemmeno a parole, senhor pizzaioLLo, per questo meriti di essere sbugiardato! 


#fakeItalian #oltraggioso

18 aprile 2024


Sono stata invitata a un festival di musica sacra a Bari. Mi preparo a mangiare la focaccia originale. Poi vediamo chi la fa meglio!

30 março 2024


Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
  Teu exagera ou exclui.
Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
  No mínimo que fazes.
Assim em cada lago a lua toda
  Brilha, porque alta vive.


14 - 2 - 1933 

REIS, Ricardo (Fernando Pessoa)

29th February 2024

I don't ignore people. I just cannot keep up with the email flow... 🥺

13 fevereiro 2024

Seikilos epitaph

While you live, shine

have no grief at all

life exists only for a short while

and Time demands his due. 


(preparando il nuovo corso di musica antica)

10 fevereiro 2024

Tenho sonhado muito. Estou cansado de ter sonhado, porém não cansado de sonhar. De sonhar ninguém se cansa, porque sonhar é esquecer, e esquecer não pesa e é um sono sem sonhos em que estamos despertos. Em sonhos consegui tudo. Também tenho despertado, mas que importa?  


27-6-1930

Livro do Desassossego por Bernardo Soares. Vol.I. Fernando Pessoa. 

28 January 2024

Born to write poetry, forced to write emails. 

25 January 2024

I love https://pictor.irht.cnrs.fr/en. Never had such a fancy signature!

22 gennaio 2024

Se vai in Puglia in inverno e non mangi i cardoncelli commetti peccato.

(every cloud has a silver lining)

Würzburg, 10th January 2024

I really enjoyed presenting my research at the CODAMUS lecture series (Computational and Digital Approaches to Music Scholarship) however, I am afraid there was a misunderstanding. It is the other Elsa, the blond gal from the Frozen movie, who loves cold weather! Not THIS BRUNETTE from Southern Italy accustomed to milder winter temperatures...

15 dicembre 2023

Belle quelle emails che cancelli senza nemmeno aprirle.

#sonotroppe  #scriveteaqualcunaltro

27th November 2023

Eccolo qui! Un bel librone pasciuto e pesante, proprio come quelli che piacciono a me. Finalmente disponibile sul catalogo di Brepols:

https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503606149-1?fbclid=IwAR3I761LvA4YhICcC4JnuL9-YAPfI5gHBlpjMlFP3RjAsGcNiP7cU8NYLXs 


Scriptor, Cantor & Notator is an innovative multi-author project dealing with the complex interconnections between learning, writing and performing chant in the Middle Ages. A number of different methodological approaches have been employed, with the aim of beginning to understand the phenomenon of chant transmission over a large geographical area, linking and contrasting modern definitions of East and West. Thus, in spite of this wide geographical spread, and the consequent variety of rites, languages and musical styles involved, the common thread of parallels and similarities between various chant repertoires arising from the need to fix oral repertories in a written form, and the challenges involved in so doing, are what bring this wide variety of repertoires and approaches together. This multi-centric multi-disciplinary approach will encourage scholars working in these areas to consider their work as part of a much larger geographical and historical picture, and thus reveal to reader and listener more, and far richer, patterns of connections and developments than might otherwise have been suspected.


Scriptor, Cantor & Notator is published in two books. The first, The Materiality of Sound in Chant Manuscripts in the West, brings together articles on several different families of early music scripts in the Latin West and provides a vividly diverse picture of some of the best current scholarship on the various types of ancient and medieval musical notation. 


16th November 2023

I cannot wait to be back in Belgium again, after so many years. I look forward to presenting a paper on music encoding at the Namur Symposium on 1st December 2023. Here is the abstract of my presentation 

MEI for Neumes 


A key difference of neumatic notation from common music notation is its heavy reliance on orality. The musical signs were intended as reminders to trigger in the singer the correct performance of the music being read. As such, neumatic notations conveyed only partial musical information, often lacking indication of the exact pitch. This paper focuses on the challenges related to encoding the information conveyed by neumatic notations in a machine-readable format. I will explore the tension inherent in considering the logical and visual domains of the encoding of early notations independently, but equally, and discuss some complicated examples. For instance, in neumatic notations the same written sign could have multiple interpretations according to the style of notation where it was employed. Furthermore, while the music encoding aims to narrow down and capture the meaning of the neumes in a logical and coherent system, occasionally the significance of some neumes is under debate (e.g., quilisma) and, despite its aim for accuracy, the encoding must remain open for future interpretations.

9 novembro 2023


"Não sou nada.

Nunca serei nada.

Não posso querer ser nada.

À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo."


15-1-1928

Poesias de Álvaro de Campos. Fernando Pessoa

8th November 2023

The ECHOES Project is all about crossing the boundaries between disciplines and learning new skills. Lots of fun! 🥳

13th October 2023

ECHOES is in Braga! Our amazing collaborators, Carla Crespo and Tiago Pinto, have been photographing some 17th-century plainchant manuscripts in the Cathedral Archive and in the Faculdade de Teologia. Not only they took professional images of the books, but they also sent me these beautiful postcards from Braga. So proud of my team! (and I cannot wait to see what's inside the manuscripts! 🧐)  

Photo credit: Carlinha Crespo 

12th October 2023

Still here? Well thank you for your interest in my activities! This page, however, is not necessarily related to musicology. Starting from today I will share some information, thoughts, random ideas and photos with those who may want to know more about me. This blog won't have any predefined fixed structure. I will irregularly post in any of the languages I am more familiar with (Italian, Portuguese and English) and the topics may range from early music manuscripts to cooking recipes... Yes, I have recently baked an amazing glazed orange cake. Sorry, I cannot share the pics because it's already gone. But you can trust me it was good!