Peter S. Poulos , PHD

Peter Poulos's research interests include Italian Renaissance and Baroque music production and patronage, early modern European history and culture, music in Genoa and Rome, rhetoric and music, intertextuality, paratexts of musical prints, and twentieth-century Neoclassicism.

Poulos received his PhD in musicology from CCM with a dissertation on the life and sacred music of the Genoese composer Simone Molinaro (ca. 1570-1636).  Part of this work consists of the first critical edition and analysis of Molinaro’s extant polyphonic and concerted sacred vocal music–nearly 900 total pages in transcription.  Further work on this topic has resulted in the rediscovery of several formerly lost works by Molinaro and the first modern-day performances of motets and concerti by this composer.  Poulos is recognized as a leading expert in early-modern Genoese music and culture.  His paper "Marian Devotion for the Senarega Chapel in San Lorenzo, Genoa” and critical edition of Molinaro's motet "Quae est ista" received the First Prize award in the Early Music Scholars Competition held in San Francisco and adjudicated by a panelist of leading experts in early music from the United States and England.  Poulos presented the keynote address at Musica e arte nella Genova del ‘600, a symposium celebrating the commissioning and installation of Federico Barocci's famous altarpiece, the Crucifixion with Three Saints (1596), which linked the symbolism of this painting and it's patron, Matteo Senarega, Doge of Genoa (1595-1597), to music and texts in Molinaro's Motectorum . . . liber primus (1597).  Poulos was awarded the First Prize in the V International Baroque Music Competition, Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli for his paper on the Madrigali a cinque voci (1615) of Molinaro which will appear in a forthcoming monograph on Genoese patrons of music in Rome.

PhD: University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music 2004 (Musicology)

MM: University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music 1994 (Music History)

BA - Summa cum laude: Kent State University 1987 (Music)

BA - Summa cum laude: Kent State University 1984 (History)

Invited Presentations

“Typology and Narrative in a Book of Latin Sacred Music" . Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval & Renaissance Studies, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO, June, 2022.

“The Siren’s Loom: Leonora Baroni and the Fantastici of Rome" . 19th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, UK, July, 2021.

“Religion and Cultural Exchange in Music for the Doge of Genoa” . 18th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Cremona, Italy, July, 2018.

“Myth, Mythology and the Partitura delli sei libri de’ madrigali of Carlo Gesualdo” . American Musicological Society, Midwest Chapter, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, April, 2018.

“G. B. De Marini and the ‘Genoese Nation’ in Rome: Patronage, Piety and Politics" . Early Modern Rome 3, Rome, Italy, October, 2017.

"A New Source of Molinaro’s Motectorum quinis, liber primus (1597)" . Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, IL, April, 2017.

"Victoria and the Motet in Genoa: Models and Influences” . Mapping the post-Tridentine Motet (ca. 1560-ca. 1610): Text, Style and Performance, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, April, 2015.

“Barocci’s Crucifixion with Saints and Music for a Sorrowful Mother" . Second Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO, June, 2014.,

“Simone Molinaro’s Madrigali a cinque voci and Genoese Patrons in Rome" . Medieval-Renaissance Music Conference, Certaldo, Italy, July, 2013.

“Simone Molinaro’s Madrigali a cinque voci: Musical Patronage and Cultural Exchange" . American Musicological Society, Midwest Chapter, Indianapolis, IN, September, 2012.,

“Piety and Patronage of a Roman Immigrant: Giovanni Battista de Marini, Baron of Bomba" . Panel on Cultural Exchange and Transnational Encounter: Music, Art and Patrons. Renaissance Society of America, Washington, D.C., March, 2012.

“Victoria a Genova: Modelli e influenza" . Società Italiana di Musicologia, Genoa, Italy, October, 2011.

“Quae est ista quae progreditur: Marian Devotion for the Senarega Chapel in San Lorenzo, Genoa” . Early Music Scholars Conference, San Francisco, CA, April, 2010.

“Un regalo di musica sacra per il Doge di Genova: il Motectorum liber primus di Simone Molinaro” . Musica e arte nella Genova del ‘600, Provincia di Genova, Palazzo Doria-Spinola, Genoa, Italy, November, 2009.

“Piety, Remembrance, and ‘The Good Shepherd’: A Gift of Sacred Music for the Doge of Genoa" . Sixth Conference in Musical Philology: Musical Philology Today: Historical Heritage and New Perspectives, Cremona, Italy, November, 2009.

“A Late Sixteenth-Century Endowment for Music at the Cathedral of Genoa" . Società Italiana di Musicologia, Bergamo, Italy, October, 2008.

“Recogitandis donis tuis: An Endowment for Music at the Cathedral of Genoa" . University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, OH, May, 2008.

“Intertextuality and Design in the Madrigali a cinque voci of Simone Molinaro" . Società Italiana di Musicologia, Chieti, Italy, October, 2007.

"The Dedication as Petition: Simone Molinaro’s Motectorum quinis, et missae denis vocibus, liber primus (1597)" . “Cui dono lepidum novum libellum?” Dedicating Latin Works and Motets in the Sixteenth Century: Theory and Practice, Rome, Italy, August, 2005.

First Place, V International Baroque Music Competition, Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli, Musicology Section, Vignanello, Italy

Exemplary Service Award to Student Education, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine

First Place, Early Music Scholars Competition, Early Music America and Chalice Consort

Quality Service Award, University of Cincinnati Libraries, University of Cincinnati

The Priscilla Neill Library Leadership Award, University of Cincinnati Libraries, University of Cincinnati

Janet Levy Award for Independent Scholars, American Musicological Society

Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society

Phi Alpha Theta National History Society