Jessie Ann Owens is an American author and educator. She is a professor of music at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

and a former dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. Owens is a recognized musicologist of Renaissance music.

Biography

Owens is the daughter of author William A. Owens."Premiere of 'Frontier Boy' meets success"
''The Paris News'', Paris, Texas, November 25, 1991, pages 1A-2A. She graduated from

Kent School Kent School is a private, co-educational, college preparatory boarding school in Kent, Connecticut, United States. Frederick Herbert Sill established the school in 1906. It is affiliated with the Episcopal Church of the United States. Acade ...

in 1967. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Latin from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in 1971, Master of Fine Arts in Musicology from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1975 and a Ph.D. in Musicology from Princeton University in 1978. Owens was a professor of musicology at the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music (B.M ...

at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

in New York from 1980 to 1984 and professor and former dean of arts and sciences at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

in Massachusetts from 1984 to 1989.Owens, William A. ''Tell Me a Story, Sing Me a Song: A Texas Chronicle'',

University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texan ...

, Austin, Texas, 1983, page vii. She was the Dean, Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Davis from 2006 to 2014 and a Distinguished Professor of Music, Emeritus from 2017. Her music transcriptions have appeared in books and scholarly research. She noted in her book ''Composers at Work'' that musical education was "an area badly in need of further investigations." She also studied the role of angels in music. Using paleographical and

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...

analysis, she also studied the possible relationship between

renaissance music Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century '' ars nova'', the Tr ...

composers

Cipriano de Rore Cipriano de Rore (occasionally Cypriano) (1515 or 1516 – between 11 and 20 September 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. Not only was he a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish compose ...

and Baldissera Donato providing new insights about them.Cirst, Stephen A. and Marvin, Roberta Montemorra (editors). ''Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations'',

University of Rochester Press Boydell & Brewer is an academic press based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, that specializes in publishing historical and critical works. In addition to British and general history, the company publishes three series devoted to studies, edition ...

, Rochester, New York, 2004, pages 2-3.

Publications

*1983, ''Tell Me a Story, Sing Me a Song: A Texas Chronicle'', provided musical transcriptions () *1996, ''Composers at Work : the Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600'' () *2000, ''Texas Folk Songs'', provided musical transcriptions () *2004, "A Collaboration between Cipriano de Rore and Baldissera Donato?" chapter 1 in ''Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations'' () *2011, "'And the angel said ...': Conversations with Angels in Early Modern Music" chapter 10 in ''Conversations with Angels: Essays Towards a History of Spiritual Communication, 1100-1700'' ()

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Jessie Ann 1950 births Living people American women writers Barnard College alumni Brandeis University faculty Kent School alumni Princeton University alumni University of California, Davis faculty Eastman School of Music faculty