Daniel J. DiCenso

Music Department Associate Professor, Department Chair Ph.D., University of Cambridge Fields: History, Early Music, Chant, Rock, Hip-Hop

Biography

Daniel J. DiCenso, ’98 is a specialist in Medieval liturgy, with a particular interest in the history of Gregorian chant during the eighth and ninth centuries. He also enjoys teaching a variety of courses about contemporary popular music, including pop music, hip-hop, and rock.

Prof. DiCenso studied musicology as a Gates Scholar under Prof. Susan Rankin at the University of Cambridge, where he received his Ph.D. in 2012. His dissertation is entitled: “Sacramentary-Antiphoners as Sources of Gregorian Chant in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries.” Prior to his time at Cambridge, Prof. DiCenso earned a BA in Music with a minor in Medieval & Renaissance Studies from the College of the Holy Cross (1998) and an MA in Musicology from the University of Pennsylvania (2001), where he worked with Tom Connolly and Emma Dillon. He also holds an MA in Classical Studies from Villanova University (2005), an MS in Secondary Education from the University of Pennsylvania (2001), and a Ph.D. in Education also from the University of Pennsylvania (2005).

Prof. DiCenso is co-editor of the volume Chant, Liturgy and the Inheritance of Rome (Boydell & Brewer, 2017) with Prof. Rebecca Maloy (University of Colorado Boulder). He has also published several important articles and reviews including “Re-Visiting the Admonitio generalis” in Chant, Liturgy and the Inheritance of Rome (2017), “Moved by Music: Problems in Approaching Emotional Expression in Gregorian Chant,” in Emotion in Medieval Textual Media, ed. by Mary Flannery (Brill, forthcoming), and “Hildegard on Trial: The Narrow Reception of a Medieval Abbess-Composer” in Marginalia: The Journal of the Medieval Reading Group at the University of Cambridge (2007). Other current projects include preparing an edition of all the sources of Gregorian Chant for the Mass known to survive from before the year 900 and research projects on popular and African-American music.

At Holy Cross, Prof. DiCenso teaches a number of courses, including the History of Western Music, Gregorian Chant, Introduction to Music, African American Music: From Blues to Rap, and additional courses on Popular Music for Montserrat. As the first Holy Cross student to have won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, Prof. DiCenso also enjoys working with the Office of Distinguished Fellowships and Graduate Studies in order to encourage more Holy Cross students to apply for fellowships to fund graduate study, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Courses

• History of Western Music
• Gregorian Chant
• Introduction to Music
• African American Music: From Blues to Rap
• Music & Identity