Graduate student Camilo Lozano Velasquez from Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Music presented original research at a recent online symposium dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of music and cats. The symposium marked the first comprehensive scholarly event of its kind, bringing together research from fields including music history and theory, popular music studies, human–animal studies, psychology, behavioral biology, media and cultural studies, literary studies, and artistic practice.
Velasquez’s paper, “Modal Tomcatting and Catcalling: Orlande de Lassus’s O Lucia, miau, miau (1560),” explores the playful intersections of modality, imitation, and humor in Renaissance vocal music. Focusing on Lassus’s celebrated work, the paper examines how feline sounds and behaviors are musically constructed and culturally understood within sixteenth-century contexts. An abstract of his presentation appears on page 19 of the symposium program.
The symposium provided a unique forum for innovative, cross-disciplinary scholarship and highlighted the expanding scope of musicological research through creative and unconventional lenses.