500 Years Later

500 years later is a project I started about two years ago and plan to continue for years to come.

The idea for this project came to me in January of 2018 in a class I took at Shenandoah. In this class we studied sacred music of the Medieval era and the Renaissance. I kept noticing illuminations, and imagery of lutes in the texts we studied, yet my conservatory training told me lutes were not used in sacred music of this time. Even though I thought I knew better, the question of "were lutes actually used in sacred music of this time?" kept nagging me. I eventually asked my professor after class one day and she said, "You should apply for a Fulbright."

I was fortunate enough to be a Fulbright Semi-Finalist in 2019. This inspired me to continue my work here in the States until I can travel to Nuremberg to study this rich music in person.

In the 500 years later project, I plan to make and publish an edition of sacred music spanning the 8 Lautenbuchs of Hans Neusidler (1508-1563) for guitar, record videos of myself performing these works in sacred spaces in America and Germany, and blog about my journey and what I discover about this sacred music.


If you want to follow my journey, you have come to the right place.

Guitarist

Denver Walker