Caroline Lesemann-Elliott awarded the Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellowship in Music at the Bodleian Library

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Caroline Lesemann-Elliott has been awarded the Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellowship in Music at the Bodleian Library for autumn 2023.

Caroline's project at the Bodleian will provide the first complete overview of the music collection of the Blount family of Mapledurham, a collection acquired by the Bodleian Library in 1983. The Blount music collection contains manuscripts from around 1700, including sources associated with young English Catholic women such as Theresa and Martha Blount, and Francis and Lettice Tichborne. Caroline's PhD research uncovered how these manuscripts document the musical connections gained by these girls through their education at exiled English convents in France. Caroline's Bodleian project will explore how the manuscripts reflect interpersonal relationships and cultural exchange, seeking to broaden the focus of musicological research away from famous composers and instead to illuminate a range of cultural go-betweens who moved across geographic borders.

The Albi Rosenthal Fellowship in Music provides support for research in the music special collections of the Bodleian Libraries. The Bodleian Libraries' music collections are among the largest in the country and contain printed music from the 16th century onwards and large numbers of music manuscripts from medieval times to the present day. The fellowship is offered in memory of Albi Rosenthal, one of the greatest dealers in music manuscripts, archives and rare books of the 20th century.