The Australian Research Council recently announced that it will fund our new project “The Arts and Science of Canon in the Music of early 17th-Century Rome” (DP180100680) from 2018 to early 2021 under its Discovery Projects Scheme. This funding will allow us to continue and extend our research on canonic techniques started in 2015 in another ARC Discovery Project “Canonic Techniques and Musical Change, c.1330 to c.1530” that will complete in the new year (a series of publications are waiting in the wings).

Our new project will investigate relations between major discoveries in scientific thought with musical developments in composing canons. Roman musicians were especially dedicated to all sorts of canonic techniques and used them in a multitude of compositions. Many scientists were trained in music and followed the flow of canonic compositions with great interest. The project will explore the nexus between music and science especially the ways in which the great outpouring of canonic techniques can be viewed through emerging theories of probability and combinatorics.