Faith Lanam is a musicologist, performer, pedagogue, and continuing lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on the music and women of the Colegio de San Miguel de Belem, Mexico’s first female music conservatory. She has collected and edited numerous musical manuscripts, performance scores, partbooks, and archival documents from the Archivo Histórico del Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola, Vizcaínas, in Mexico City. Drawing on secondary sources in historical musicology, music education, and studies in colonialism and gender, Dr. Lanam’s research increases our understanding of historically underrepresented foci in musicology, specifically eighteenth-century music pedagogy and the professional training of female musicians, situated within the greater context of the musical and social life of colonial Mexico City.
Dr. Lanam has presented her research on the Colegio de San Miguel de Belem at the international conferences of the American Musicological Society; American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies; Society for Eighteenth-Century Music/Royal Swedish Academy of Music; Ignacio Jerusalem 250: Galant Musics in Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and the New World; and Ignacio Jerusalem, Chapelmaster of the Mexico City Cathedral: Music and Art in New Spain during the Eighteenth Century. Her work has been cited by Pedrone Persone in The Cambridge Companion to the Harpsichord (2019), Javier Marín-Lopez and Drew Edward Davies in Ignacio Jerusalem (1707–1769): Cronología biográfica y lista de obras (2019), and Nicholas Baragwanath in The Solfeggio Tradition: A Forgotten Art of Melody in the Long Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2020), among others.
Dr. Lanam serves as the organist at Saint Ann Chapel in Palo Alto, California, where she performs weekly liturgical services and specializes in hymnody, early keyboard literature, and the accompaniment of 18th- through 20th-century sacred vocal literature. As a percussionist, she performs orchestral and chamber works and collaborates with local composers in the performance of new works. Her editions of Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger's Libro terzo d’intavolatura di chitarrone facilitate the study of early baroque performance practice and performance of archlute repertoire by marimbists.
With extensive experience in the field of music education, Dr. Lanam applies her knowledge of pedagogy and educational psychology to foster an engaging and positive learning environment for students of diverse backgrounds. Access and inclusion are at the forefront of her in-person, hybrid, and online course design. Since 2020, she has developed seven online and hybrid courses. In both her applied and academic classes, she seeks to create well-rounded curricula interweaving relevant aspects of performance practice, music history, social and cultural context, music theory, and critical listening skills.
Dr. Lanam invites UCSC students who are interested in her courses to visit her class websites:
- MUSC 81D: Music and Empire
- MUSC 13: Beginning Theory and Musicianship I
- MUSC 14: Beginning Theory and Musicianship II
- MUSC 59 & 60: Keyboard Skills Series
- Music of Mexico City in the 17th through 19th Centuries
- Female Musicians of the Baroque and Early Classical Periods
- 18th- and 19th-Century Music Pedagogy
- Editing Early Music
- Liturgical Organ Performance Practice
- “El Colegio de San Miguel de Belem: Mexico's First Female Music Conservatory.” PhD Dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2018.
- “The Folías of Santiago de Murcia: Performance and Pedagogical Opportunities for All Guitarists.” Soundboard 41 (2015): 18-22.
- Ignacio Jerusalem y Stella. "Non fecit taliter." Edited by Faith Lanam. 21st-century premiere performance by Vivace Youth Chorus of San José, 2019.
- Guadalupe Ortuño. "Gradual a la Santisima Virgen de Guadalupe." Edited by Faith Lanam. 21st-century premiere performance by Vivace Youth Chorus of San José, 2019.
- José Antonio Gómez y Olguín. "Non fecit taliter." Edited by Faith Lanam. 21st-century premiere performance by the Michigan State University Young Women's Chorus, 2016.
- Ittai Rosenbaum. “Six Poems by Sylvia Plath: I. Aquatic Nocturne.” Performed by Joshua Lanam and Faith Lanam. 2012.
- Ittai Rosenbaum. “Six Poems by Sylvia Plath: II. The Couriers.” Performed by Joshua Lanam and Faith Lanam. 2012.
- Ittai Rosenbaum. “Six Poems by Sylvia Plath: III. Polly’s Tree.” Performed by Joshua Lanam and Faith Lanam. 2012.
- Ittai Rosenbaum. “Six Poems by Sylvia Plath: IV. Barren” Performed by Joshua Lanam and Faith Lanam. 2012.
- “A Neapolitan Conservatory in New Spain: A Contextual Analysis of the Contributions of Italian Pedagogues to a Mexican Girls’ School.” Paper presented at the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music/Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s International Conference Global Intersections in the Music of the 18thCentury, remote, 2021.
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“Dichotomies of Privilege: Lifting Up and Holding Down Women in New Spain through Music Education.” Paper presented at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, remote, 2021.
- “Family Legacies, Criollo Identity, and the Galant Style: Ignacio Jerusalem’s Compositions for his Daughters.” Paper to be presented at the international conference Ignacio Jerusalem 250: Galant Musics in Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and the New World, Baeza, Spain, 2019.
- “What’s a Girl to Do? Educational and Professional Paths of Colonial Mexico City’s Criolla Musicians.” Colloquium paper presented at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 2019.
- “Mothers, Sisters,Niñas, and Nuns: The Training of Young Female Musicians of Colonial Mexico.” Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Musicological Society, Vancouver, Canada, 2016.
- “The Transcription and Performance of Baroque Chitarrone Literature on Marimba.” Paper presented at the University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, 2010.
- Teaching Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz (2014-2017)
- Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz (2011-2013)
- Herbert Thompson International Scholarship Competition Winner, University of Leeds, England (2009)
- Music and Empire
- Western Music History and Literature
- Music Theory and Musicianship
- Women in Music
- Applied Keyboards
- Music in the Americas, 1500–1850
- Editing Early Music
- Music, Church, and the Monarchy in England, 1200–1900
- Performance Practice of Liturgical Music
- Early Music Performance Practice
- Strategies in Music Education and Pedagogy
- Practice, Rehearsal, and Performance Strategies