Jesse Rodin collaborates with modern performers to recreate musical experiences from the distant past. Immersing himself in primary sources, he sings from choirbooks, memorizes melodies and their texts, and recreates performances held at weddings, liturgical ceremonies, and feasts. A passionate teacher, Jesse has directed ensembles and led seminars, workshops, and masterclasses at institutions such as the Schola Cantorum (Basel, Switzerland), the University of Vienna, and the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissan ce (Tours, France).
Jesse is the Osgood Hooker Professor of Fine Arts at Stanford University. His recent monograph, The Art of Counterpoint from Du Fay to Josquin (Cambridge University Press, 2025), draws on his work with Cut Circle to uncover how fifteenth-century polyphonic music happens in time. His publications also include a volume in honor of Joshua Rifkin (2024), The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music (2015), a volume of L’homme armé masses for the New Josquin Edition (2014), Josquin’s Rome: Hearing and Composing in the Sistine Chapel (Oxford University Press, 2012), and articles that bring historiographical, analytical, evidentiary, practical, and embodied perspectives to a range of subjects. An in-progress co-edited book aims to clear the ground and offer a new path forward in Josquin studies.
Two projects in the digital humanities aim to make the period as a whole more accessible. Jesse directs the Josquin Research Project (josquin.stanford.edu), a digital tool for exploring a large musical corpus. He co-directs Mapping the Musical Renaissance (renaissancemapping.org), which facilitates basic understanding as well as serendipitous discovery.
Jesse is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation; the Université Libre de Bruxelles; the American Council of Learned Societies; the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers; the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; the American Musicological Society; and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been featured in a variety of public forums, including The New Yorker. He prepares new editions of all the music Cut Circle performs; these are freely available through the Josquin Research Project.
At Stanford Jesse directs the Facsimile Singers, in which students develop native fluency in old musical notation. He has organized symposia on the composer Johannes Okeghem, medieval music pedagogy, musical analysis in the digital age, and regional Italian cooking.