Jesse Rodin

Jesse Rodin strives to make contact with lived musical experiences of the distant past. Immersing himself in the original sources, he sings from choirbooks, memorizes melodies and their texts, and recreates performances held at weddings, liturgical ceremonies, and feasts. A passionate teacher, Rodin has led seminars, workshops, and masterclasses at institutions such as the Schola Cantorum (Basel, Switzerland), the University of Vienna, the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance (Tours, France), and Princeton University.

Rodin’s second monograph, The Art of Counterpoint from Du Fay to Josquin (Cambridge University Press, 2025), presents a new theory of how polyphonic music from the long fifteenth century happens in time. Published works include a volume in honor of Joshua Rifkin (2024), The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music (2015), Josquin’s Rome: Hearing and Composing in the Sistine Chapel (Oxford University Press, 2012), a volume of L’homme armé masses for the New Josquin Edition (2014), and many articles. An in-progress co-edited book is titled Josquin: A New Approach.

With his vocal ensemble Cut Circle Rodin performs internationally. The ensemble recently partnered with its Belgian label Musique en Wallonie to record the complete works of Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450/51–1521) on thirteen CDs. The first album appeared in 2023; a second is in production. Cut Circle has also published recordings devoted to two riveting anonymous masses of the fifteenth century (2021), the complete songs of Johannes Okeghem (2020), the late masses of Guillaume Du Fay (2016), and music from the Sistine Chapel (2012). A short film titled Sounds of Renaissance Florence recaptures the soundscape of fifteenth-century Italy.

Two projects in the digital humanities strive to make the period as a whole more accessible. Rodin directs the Josquin Research Project (josquin.stanford.edu), a digital tool for exploring a large musical corpus; and he co-directs the international project Mapping the Musical Renaissance, which facilitates basic understanding as well as serendipitous discovery.

Rodin is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation; the Université Libre de Bruxelles; the American Council of Learned Societies; the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers; the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; and the American Musicological Society. He has been featured in a variety of public forums, including The New Yorker. He prepares new editions of all the music Cut Circle performs; these are freely available through the Josquin Research Project. For his work with Cut Circle he has received the Prix Olivier Messiaen, the Noah Greenberg Award, Editor’s Choice (Gramophone), and a Diapason d’Or. Cut Circle’s latest album was a finalist for a Gramophone Award. 

At Stanford Rodin directs the Facsimile Singers, in which students develop native fluency in old musical notation. He has organized symposia on the composer Johannes Okeghem, medieval music pedagogy, musical analysis in the digital age, and regional Italian cooking. In addition to undergraduate and graduate music courses, he teaches a class on late-medieval feasting that marries art, music, poetry, and politics with hands-on experience in the kitchen.