Barbara Thornton (January 6, 1950 – November 8, 1998) was an American singer,

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

, and groundbreaking performer of

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred music, sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the Dates of classical music eras, first and longest major era of Western class ...

. Thornton, described as “one of the most eminent medieval voices of our time”, was born in Summit, New Jersey and educated at

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...

, the

Conservatorium van Amsterdam The Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA) is a Dutch conservatoire of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdam University of the Arts, the city's vocational university of arts. The Conservatorium van Amsterdam ...

, and the

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis The Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, that focuses on early music and historically informed performance. Faculty at the school have organized performing ensembles that hav ...

. In 1977, she founded the ensemble Sequentia with

Benjamin Bagby Benjamin Bagby (born February 20, 1950) is an American singer, composer, harpist, and performer of medieval music. Biography Born in Evanston, Illinois, Bagby was educated at Oberlin College, Ohio, and the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Bagby founded ...

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

. They moved to

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

that same year, where they lived and worked together for 21 years. Sequentia has released many recordings, most of them on

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (founded 1958) is a German classical music record label. It was founded by Rudolf Ruby and based in Freiburg, Breisgau. The company was acquired by BMG Music in 1992 and is now part of Sony Music Entertainment. Ruby had Alf ...

. In 1982, the group began to stage

Hildegard of Bingen Hildegard of Bingen Benedictines, OSB (, ; ; 17 September 1179), also known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictines, Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mysticism, mystic, visiona ...

’s ''

Ordo Virtutum ''Ordo Virtutum'' (Latin for ''Order of the Virtues'') is an allegorical morality play, or sacred music drama, by Hildegard of Bingen, composed around 1151, during the construction and relocation of her Abbey at Rupertsberg. It is the earliest ...

'', which proved so successful, both in concert and on record, that they undertook to record all of Hildegard's musical output—a project completed in 1998 for the celebration of the abbess's 900th birthday. The group has also performed music written in the 12th century from the musical centers

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...

Aquitaine Aquitaine (, ; ; ; ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne (), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former Regions of France, administrative region. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the administ ...

, and Notre Dame. Thornton died in

on November 8, 1998, at the age of 48, after having suffered for a number of years from an inoperable brain tumour.

Sources

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Footnotes

1950 births 1998 deaths American performers of early music Women performers of early music Schola Cantorum Basiliensis alumni 20th-century American singers 20th-century American classical musicians 20th-century American musicologists American musicologists American women musicologists Conservatorium van Amsterdam alumni {{US-singer-stub