Liza Calisesi Maidens: Centering underrepresented voices in classical choral music – UIC today

April 21, 2025
Picture a bus filled with college students traveling to a music conference. Chatter fills the air until, in a moment of spontaneity, one student begins to sing. Soon, the entire group joins in. You might assume they’re singing a pop hit, but instead, it’s the music of 16th-century composer Maddalena Casulana.
Liza Calisesi Maidens draws on moments like these to describe her achievements as a researcher and educator. Her research unearths Baroque and Renaissance music by women and composers of color, whose contributions have been overlooked. She aims to find these hidden gems and publish accessible editions for various ensemble types.
“I love singing, conducting and teaching this style of music,” she said. “But several years ago, while working with various church choirs and a university treble choir, it was hard finding the appropriate music for the voices in front of me.”
A curiosity rooted in her love for Renaissance and Baroque music led Calisesi Maidens to seek out work by composers who historically have been largely omitted from the choral canon and bring that music to broader audiences.
In 2024, through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research’s Awards for Creative Activity, Calisesi Maidens recorded and published an album with Chicago’s professional choral ensemble Bella Voce, titled “Expanding the Choral Canon.” Among the composers whose work is included in the album are Casulana, the first woman to publish her own compositions; Juana Ines de la Cruz, a composer and nun who defended women’s right to knowledge; and Vicente Lusitano, one of the first Black published composers.
After it was produced on Centaur Record Label, “Expanding the Choral Canon” made it through the first round of GRAMMY nominations for Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical, has topped Apple Music’s Early Music Playlist and is frequently played on Chicago’s classical station WFMT.
Calisesi Maidens credits her colleagues in the music department for helping her accomplish her research.
“UIC’s head of music, Brent Talbot, and my tenure mentor Ruth Rosenberg have been instrumental in my research pursuits,” she said. “They have reviewed my proposals for research funding and guided me in my tenure process. I’m also very grateful to my colleague and Bella Voce’s artistic director, Andrew Lewis, who has been so generous in producing the album with me and giving it the space and the ensemble to perform it.”
Christine Dunford, the director of UIC’s School of Theatre and Music, along with Rebecca Rugg, the dean of the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts, continue to encourage and support her research and creative activities. Additionally, her doctoral work with faculty mentors at Michigan State University has been transformative for her research pursuits.
This summer, Calisesi Maidens will visit the archives of Imogen Holst in England and attend the Aldeburgh Festival, where she will learn more about Holst’s unpublished and out-of-print choral works to publish new modernized editions. Holst, a 20th-century female composer, conductor, researcher and music educator, has only recently begun to receive recognition. With support from the UIC Award for Creative Activity that she won this year, Calisesi Maidens aims to spotlight Holst’s choral works and share them with music educators nationwide.