Musicologist-In-Residence

Dr. Roseen Giles is a renowned musicologist with a specialty in early modern musical culture.

Roseen Giles, Ph.D. is the Mrs. Alexander Hehmeyer Associate Professor of Music at Duke University. She is also the curator of DUMIC (Duke University Musical Instrument Collections). In her research she examines the aesthetic, professional, and personal relationships between poets and musicians of the Italian 17th century.

Her monograph Monteverdi and the Marvellous: Poetry, Sound, and Representation (Cambridge University Press, 2023) contributes to the histories of music and literature by arguing that the controversial experiments of 17th-century poets had a profound influence on techniques in musical composition, most notably in the works of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643).

Her most recent book—Lettera amorosa: Musical Love-Letters in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2025) explores the musical history of epistolary poetry. She has published essays on music and philosophy in the Renaissance, memory and orality in the notation of medieval music, and the relationship between music and devotional practice in the 17th century.

Dr. Roseen Giles's position as Musicologist-in-Residence is made possible thanks to the generosity of Susan Shimp