School of Music

A graduate of Acadia University, Dr. Michelle Boyd is delighted to be part of the music faculty at her alma mater. She is an instructor of musicology, teaching courses on both historical and current musics and also keyboard/musicianship.

Michelle is a passionate teacher and was awarded the 2018 Acadia Alumni Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is grateful to be at such a community-oriented institution as Acadia, where she has the opportunity to collaborate and work closely with her students.

As a researcher, Michelle is inspired by projects that investigate music's role in culture - and that allow for a crossover of performative and analytical approaches. Her current research on musical settings of John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” explores how choral compositions have contributed to and perpetuated that iconic poem’s complex reception history. Her work on this topic has received two Harrison McCain Emerging Scholar Awards.  In 2019, she produced a video lecture for the Society for American Music’s Digital Lectures Channel called The Larks Still Bravely Sing: Musical Settings of “In Flanders Fields”.

Part of Michelle's research involves performing choral settings of “In Flanders Fields” and so Michelle began working with a chamber choir, the Acadia University Singers. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she and the Singers launched a new research project to explore the pedagogical implications of virtual choir. Funded by one of Acadia’s SIG grants for COVID-19 research, they created a virtual concert and documentary, Isolated Bodies, United Voices: Virtual Choir in the Age of COVID-19, entirely through remote, online collaboration.  This project was the perfect opportunity for Michelle to combine her interests in choral conducting, video editing, and student-centred research!

Michelle's other research interests include Nova Scotian and Canadian music history. She has presented her work at both national in international conferences, including the Canadian University Music Society, the Society for American Music, and the American Musicological Society, and has had articles published in the journal American Music and in a special issue of the Nineteenth-Century Music Review dedicated to music in Canada.  Her doctoral dissertation, completed under the supervision of Professor Robin Elliott, was the first extended study of 19th-century Nova Scotian music, examining the socio-cultural context of music-making in pre-Confederation Nova Scotia.  Her doctoral research was awarded a Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and was also funded by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship and a fellowship from the University of Toronto.  

Outside of her work at Acadia, Michelle is the organist and music director at St. John’s Anglican Church in Wolfville, where she takes great joy in making music with her community-based choir.  While piano is her first love, she also plays French horn and performs with the Acadia University Wind Ensemble.  In her spare time, she likes to enjoy the town’s natural beauty as she is walked by her dog through Wolfville’s various streets and trails!  

Education
BMus (Piano Performance), Acadia University
ARCT (Piano Teaching), Royal Conservatory of Music
MA (Musicology), University of Toronto
PhD (Musicology), University of Toronto

External Links
The Flanders Choir Project Website Link here.

Sample of Recordings
Isolated Bodies, United Voices: Virtual Choir in the Age of COVID-19 (Virtual Concert & Documentary)  Link here.
The Larks Still Bravely Sing: Musical Settings of ‘In Flanders Fields’ (Society for American Music Digital Lectures Channel) Link here.
Acadia University Singers YouTube Channel Link here.