It was your first time performing at Medimus as well, the audience truly enjoyed your concert. Can we expect to see you again at Medimus and what are your impressions of the Medimus festival?

I am very happy that our performance was so well received, and indeed I am planning to return next year at Darko’s invitation. This time I will bring my friend and colleague Baptiste Romain, who, like me, works at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. While I am professor of medieval lute, he is professor of medieval fiddle. We have been performing together for more than 20 years and will be presenting our duo repertoire from the Middle Ages to the Early Renaissance.

You teach at one of the most prestigious universities – Basel Academy of Music, what makes this School a unique place for studying early music? What advice would you give to young musicians considering a path in early music today?

We are very fortunate to have these positions in a place where early music has such a unique place: Every week of the year there are performances of music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, ranging from student performances to professionally organised concerts. Together with some colleagues, I have founded a concert series for Renaissance music (www.rerenaissance.ch), which takes account of the fact that more and more specialists in the music of the 15th and 16th centuries are gathering in our city. But even in Basel there are still some niches waiting to be filled: For example, there is no regular series or festival for medieval music.

Studying medieval and renaissance music in Basel is an intensive and immersive experience. It fills students’ schedules almost back to back with studies, rehearsals and activities and can be almost overwhelming at the beginning. However, the prospects of a pure concert career after the Schola Cantorum are limited, especially outside Basel. It is therefore a good idea to have several irons in the fire. My advice, apart from enjoying and studying the music of bygone eras, is to make friends, learn German, broaden your interests and find your own way within the field of early music, which may involve teaching, radio work or outreach projects, depending on your individual interests and skills. There is no clear path to a career after studying early music. You need to be creative, take initiative and opportunities and be open to unexpected side-paths. Don’t expect the world to invite you to get involved: take the helm.

You are known for both scholarly work and live performance. How do these worlds influence each other in your career?

For me, they have always been closely intertwined. I have always practised both aspects side by side. In the beginning, I did the scientific work to better understand how the music I wanted to perform worked. But the more I got into it, the more the research became its own reward. So far I’ve always found my way back into performance. The scholarly work helped me to find plausible ways of performing music from sources such as the Lochamer-Liederbuch and the codices of Oswald von Wolkenstein; it helped me to decipher, edit and perform the Wolfenbüttel Lute Tablature; and on occasion it helped me to edit and complete partially fragmentary repertoires such as can be found in the Codex Krasiński (the complete edition of which was just published with PWM) with music from late medieval Poland and the Schöffer Songbook from 1517 with German tenor songs from Maximilian’s court. But the opposite is also true: performing music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance has helped me to solve scholarly questions, especially concerning ensemble combinations, playing styles and techniques, etc., for example concerning the plectrum lute, the lute duo, and German songs of the Middle Ages in general; results that have found their way into published editions and articles.

What role do you think early music can play in today’s broader cultural and musical landscape?

At a time when politics tends to creep into all aspects of society, a coherent understanding of the past and its cultural legacy on its own terms can be beneficial to entire populations. Sharing our insights and knowledge, both in performance and in communication with audiences, can help to appreciate this cultural heritage while freeing it from ideological appropriation, especially in the case of historical musical styles. It is there for all of us to enjoy and come together as human beings, and I believe that the expressiveness of medieval and Renaissance music is a gain for all.

Sanja Đurić

PR of Medimus festival