Kate Kennedy Steiner
Associate Professor of Music
Kate Steiner is a coinvestigator on a successful SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant titled "Cultural Transformation and Societal Need: Chant and Religious Music in Canada and the eastern USA 1600-1950." She is also head of the team responsible for the cataloguing chant manuscripts and fragments in Eastern and Central Canada in the “Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission” (DACT) project, which includes 25 teams, more than 50 co-investigators, collaborators, and scholars around the world. These projects are complementary to each other and create opportunities for teams of undergraduate Research Assistants to contribute.
“The DACT project extends the study of Latin plainchant from localized research focused mostly on Europe and the Middle Ages to global research tracing transmission to other continents through to the modern era,” explained Kate, who focuses on Canadian aspects of the project. "The Cultural Transformation and Societal Need project further advances this aim by creating a publicly accessible catalogue of plainchant translated into languages in Canada, especially Indigenous languages.”
“I have learned more about chant digitization projects all over the world, I have connected with librarians to understand their concerns when creating digital chant records, I've gotten a sneak peek at projects that are going to be immensely helpful for furthering the digital scholarship on chant, and I've been able to hire students as research assistants supported by the SSHRC partnership grant,” described Kate.
“I'm excited about the impact these projects have already had on students in music,” reflected Kate. For example, University of Waterloo Music student Olivia Jin had the opportunity to travel to Switzerland this summer, supported by the DACT project, to give a paper at the "Scraps of the Sacred" colloquium. She met many other students and scholars in the field who gave feedback, shared knowledge, and encouraged her work. “I'm also really excited about the connections it is fostering for research assistants and me with institutions that hold fragments, such as the DRAGEN lab at St Jerome’s and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.”
“Sharing the scholarly and logistical challenges we face with each other allows us to share resources,” added Kate. “And knowing that others are asking similar questions encourages me to take risks with my own scholarly approaches.”
