Kate Helsen
Kate currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada at the University of Toronto where she is investigating the transition from neumes to square notation in musical manuscripts written at the turn of the thirteenth century. Her doctoral research at the University of Regensburg, Germany, focused on the structure and transmission of the Great Responsory repertory in the Gregorian tradition and was completed in 2008 under the supervision of David Hiley. Kate has taught upper-level courses in medieval music at the University of Regensburg and the University of Toronto and will be teaching again at the University of Toronto, as well as at the University of Western Ontario, in the coming year.
Kate actively pursues her own research, publishing recent articles in journals such as Plainsong and Medieval Music, and has given papers at conferences in Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, England, the U.S.A. and Canada. Maintaining her involvement in other projects, Kate was a language editor for the recent publication of a collection of articles entitled Political Plainchant? Music, Text and Historical Context of Medieval Saints' Offices, and has undertaken transcriptions of nine saints' offices for the Irish project, The Liturgical Veneration of Irish Saints in Medieval Europe. As a research assistant with CANTUS since 2004, she has contributed indices for 12 complete antiphoners to that project. She has been the Assistant English Language Editor of Intersections, Canadian Journal of Music since 2008. A musician as well as a musicologist, Kate has sung with the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir for four years, studied voice extensively, and conducted several church and community choirs.
With The Becket Project since January, 2009, Kate's work has concentrated on a comparison of the responsories in the Thomas Office to the more ancient repertory explored in her doctoral thesis. In addition, she has been examining a particular responsory, Christe Jesu per Thome vulnera, as found in about 80 notated sources contained in the project's databases. Kate also spends time consulting with other Becket team members as editor, helper and debate partner!
Kate actively pursues her own research, publishing recent articles in journals such as Plainsong and Medieval Music, and has given papers at conferences in Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, England, the U.S.A. and Canada. Maintaining her involvement in other projects, Kate was a language editor for the recent publication of a collection of articles entitled Political Plainchant? Music, Text and Historical Context of Medieval Saints' Offices, and has undertaken transcriptions of nine saints' offices for the Irish project, The Liturgical Veneration of Irish Saints in Medieval Europe. As a research assistant with CANTUS since 2004, she has contributed indices for 12 complete antiphoners to that project. She has been the Assistant English Language Editor of Intersections, Canadian Journal of Music since 2008. A musician as well as a musicologist, Kate has sung with the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir for four years, studied voice extensively, and conducted several church and community choirs.
With The Becket Project since January, 2009, Kate's work has concentrated on a comparison of the responsories in the Thomas Office to the more ancient repertory explored in her doctoral thesis. In addition, she has been examining a particular responsory, Christe Jesu per Thome vulnera, as found in about 80 notated sources contained in the project's databases. Kate also spends time consulting with other Becket team members as editor, helper and debate partner!