Medieval music and liturgy expert Rebecca Maloy will join the University of Notre Dame’s renowned sacred music program as its new director beginning Jan. 1.
A former Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and a leading voice in musicology, Maloy specializes in liturgical chant, liturgy and ritual, and the theory and analysis of early music. She is an avid interdisciplinary collaborator who served as director of the CU Boulder Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.
At Notre Dame, she will hold the J. W. Van Gorkom Chair in Music in the Department of Music.
“We are thrilled that Rebecca Maloy will take up the reins as director of the Sacred Music program at Notre Dame, which draws talented graduate students from all over the world,” said Peter Jeffery, the current director of Sacred Music at Notre Dame (SMND), professor of musicology and ethnomusicology, and the Michael P. Grace Chair in Medieval Studies.
SMND offers two graduate degrees, the Calvin M. Bower Doctor of Musical Arts and the Master of Sacred Music, which is supported by the Margot Fassler Endowment for Excellence and named in honor of the program’s founding director.
SMND students learn from and work alongside world-class faculty and engage with the community through performances, working with the Notre Dame Children’s Choir, and serving in local congregations and parishes. SMND alumni hold major positions in Catholic and Protestant cathedrals, perform throughout the world, lead community and school choral programs, and teach at seminaries and universities.
“We are delighted that the new director is invested in the interdisciplinary mission of SMND at the intersection of music, theology, and ministry, exemplified in Professor Maloy’s own interests and publications spanning the history of medieval chant and liturgy,” said Tim Matovina, professor and chair of the Department of Theology.
“Her scholarship will advance the mission of SMND and also be an asset to our own department, as theology graduate students will benefit from her teaching, alongside sacred music students and students of the Medieval Institute.”
Maloy is the author or co-author of four books, including Understanding the Old Hispanic Office: Texts, Melodies, and Devotion in Early Medieval Iberia, published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press, and National Humanities Center fellowship. Her previous research has also been funded by the European Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Margot Fassler, the Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy Emerita and founding director of SMND, said she was thrilled with Maloy’s appointment.
“I have never seen an individual with such enthusiasm for our work. She is a scholar with long experience as a gifted teacher and as an experienced administrator in a major school of music,” Fassler said. “Her world-class scholarship will continue SMND’s tradition of leadership crucial to Notre Dame, the leading Catholic research university in the United States.”
