UVM scholar's topic: Archaeology of ancient Greek music

Skidmore's Classics Department will host a talk titled "The Archaeology of Ancient Greek Music" by ethnomusicologist John Curtis Franklin of the University of Vermont on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Free and open to the public, the event will begin at 6 p.m. in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.

How did the music of ancient Greece sound? When and where did the Greeks hear music? What instruments did they play? Franklin will answer these and other questions during a visual and audio survey of Greek music, both its technology and its social functions, from the age of Homer down to the Hellenistic era. 

Franklin is associate professor of classics at UVM, where he teaches Greek and Latin language and literature, especially epic, lyric and comedy, with occasional escapades into the Ancient Near East, and music archeology.

On his web site he writes, "Much of my research has dealt with early Greek cultural history at the Near Eastern interface(s), focusing especially on the interaction of poetic/musical traditions, always in hopes of elucidating broader issues. My undergraduate background, in music composition and electronic music (B.M. New England Conservatory 1988), remains an influence: the history of ancient music technology, both physical and conceptual, is crucial to my research."

He has reconstructed and recorded scores for plays by Aristophanes, and he served as narrator of and academic advisor/musical contributor to a three-part series on Greek music for ArtsEdge, a program of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Click here to visit Franklin's web site, where he has included recorded reconstructions of ancient music.

Franklin earned an M.A. in classics at the University of Washington, Seattle, and a Ph.D. in classics at University College, London. He has received fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J. (2011), the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. (2005-06); the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (Broneer Fellow, 2002-03); and the American Academic in Room (Rome Prize Fellow, 2000-02).

Franklin has a connection to Skidmore: his sister Adah Franklin Wright is a 1985 Skidmore graduate.