Professor John Griffiths
Oficial de la Orden de Isabel la
Católica BA PhD Monash FAHA
Professor of Music
John Griffiths has built his academic career around researching and performing early music. As a vihuelist and lutenist he has performed throughout the world, and his musicological work maintains strong links with his artistic practice. His undergraduate and doctoral studies at Monash were complemented by performance studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel) as well as in Germany and Spain. He has directed early music studies at the University of Melbourne since his appointment in 1980 and has held a Chair in Music since 1994. His teaching at the University of Melbourne has been punctuated by numerous periods overseas, most notably as Visiting Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1997-1998. In 1993 he was knighted by Juan Carlos I of Spain for his contribution to Spanish culture and in 2006 he was elected to the Australian Academy of the Humanities and as a Socio de Honor of Sociedad de Vihuela in Spain.
Even though the most constant focus of his research has been sixteenth-century Spain, his research encompasses broad music-historical studies of renaissance culture as well as more specific work on renaissance music pedagogy, organology, music printing, connections between written and oral traditions, and music in urban society. Recent publications include a broadly-based (Políticas y practicas musicales en el mundo de Felipe II with Javier Suárez-Pajares), work on 16th-century instrumental pedagogy (Tañer vihuela según Juan Bermudo) and music in Spanish Naples (Neapolitan Lute Music with Dinko Fabris). In addition to this he has contributed substantially to leading international music reference works such as The New Grove and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and the Diccionario de la Música Española e Hispanoamericana.
As a soloist and ensemble member he has performed throughout the world at leading international festivals and concert halls. He began his performance career as a classical guitarist but developed an interest in some of its historical predecessors while still an undergraduate. He gave the first ever performance on vihuela in Australia in 1972 and since then has become recognised as both a pioneer and leader in Australia of the performance of early plucked instruments. The instruments he plays include medieval and renaissance lutes, theorbo, chitarrone, vihuela, as well as baroque and nineteenth-century guitars. In addition to numerous ensemble CDs, his 1995 solo CD of vihuela music, Echoes of Orpheus, was hailed in the press as “the finest Australia has yet produced” in the field of early music.
He has been heavily involved in giving masterclasses and workshops internationally and for a number of years taught annually at prestigious European summer courses such as de Festival Internacional de Guitarra in Córdoba and the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua de Daroca. He is presently founder and director of the Melbourne Spring Early Music Festival.
In addition to research and performing, John Griffiths serves the wider scholarly community as general editor of Lyrebird Press , joint general editor of Corpus des Luthistes (CESR, Tours), and member of the editorial boards of numerous journals including Context, Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana (Spain), Hispanica Lyra (Spain), Journal of the Lute Society of America, Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Belgium), Place — an on-line interdisciplinary journal, Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Musicológicas “Carlos Vega” (Argentina), Revista de Musicología (Spain). In 2006 he was elected president of the Musicological Society of Australia, and is Patron of the Spanish American Foundation for the Arts and the Australian Chamber Choir.
Current Projects
- Urban Soundscapes in Renaissance Spain
- Engaging with Place: An interdisciplinary Framework for Place-Based Research and Practice
- Music Printing in Sixteenth-century Spain
Activities for this year
- 9 March: PERFORMANCE. La Romanesca, Music of the 12th & 15th centuries. Millenium Series, Lara
- 10-24 April: ARTISTIC DIRECTOR. Medieval Music Illuminated, State Library of Victoria, Musical Director of Concert Series
- 24 April: PERFORMANCE. La Romanesca, Monodies. State Library of Victoria. Performance in the Medieval Music Illuminated series. This was also La Romanesca’s 30th anniversary performance.
- 30-31 May: CONFERENCE. Imagination, Books and Community in Medieval Europe. Conference, State Library of Victoria. Paper: The Alfonsine Encyclopaedia of Music.
- 31 May: PERFORMANCE. Bass Desire. Performance in the 2008 Past Echoes Autumn Early Music Festival. Music of the 16th and 17th centuries directed by Victoria Watts & Ruth Wilkinson, with Julia Freddersdorf, Donald, Laura Vaughan, David Macfarlane, Kara Ciezki, Louisa Hunter-Bradley
- 2-4 July: CONFERENCE. VIII Biennial Conference of the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia, Monash University. Paper: Printing and the popularisation of music culture in renaissance Spain.
- 9-11 July: CONFERENCE. Cathedral, Court, City & Cloister. Fisher Library, University of Sydney. Paper: Models for Urban Music History in Renaissance Spain.
- 24-27 July: CONFERENCE. Medieval & Renaissance Music Conference, University of Bangor (Wales). Coordinator of session: Urban Soundscapes in Renaissance Spain, with participants Soterraña Aguirre (Universidad de Valladolid), Juan Ruiz Jiménez (Granada), Cristina Diego (Université de Nancy III), José Antonio Gutiérrez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Paper: Towards an Urban History of Instruments and Instrumental Practice.
- 28-31 August: FESTIVAL LECTURE. Utrecht Festival of Early Music 2008 “Siglos de Oro”. Lecture title: Courtier, merchant, poet, priest: vihuelas and vihuelistas in urban life.
- 10-19 October: ARTISTIC DIRECTOR. Melbourne Spring Early Music Festival. University of Melbourne.
- 13-14 November: CONFERENCE. Australian Academy of the Humanities Symposium: The Inspiration of Place. The Artistic Life of Cities., Sydney Opera House. Paper: Esteban’s Ear: The Urban Soundscape of Renaissance Valladolid
- 4-7 December: CONFERENCE CONVENER. 31st Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia. University of Melbourne
Teaching
2008 teaching
- Notation & Editing
- Medieval & Early Modern
- Spanish Language and Diction
- Early Music Class
Other subjects taught on the current curriculum:
- Court, Church and Urban Music 1460-1600
- Early Music Theory
- Historical Perfomance Practice
- Language and Diction – Spanish
- Music of Spain
- Music of the Manuscript Tradition