Barbara Stühlmeyer

Barbara Stühlmeyer OblOSB (born 12 November 1964) is a German theologian, musicologist, author, especially a Hildegard scholar and a science journalism.

Stühlmeyer was born in Bremen.

After completing her A levels at the Altes Gymnasium in Bremen and her organ studies with church music director Winfrid Langosz, whom she assisted at the Catholic Provost church St. John's Bremen, she studied Christian music at the University of the Arts Bremen (Diploma 1988).

During her scientific studies from 1988 to 1994 she studied Catholic theology with Arnold Angenendt and Klemens Richter, philosophy with Berthhold Wald and musicology with Axel Beer and Winfried Schepporst at the Westfaelische Wilhelms Universitaet in Muenster.

From 1993 to 2001 she was conference chairwoman at the Catholic academy St.-Jabobus-Haus in Goslar.

Since 1995 she is contributor and editor of the journal Karfunkel, where she accounts for the categories music and medievalism as well since 2005 as permanent freelancer for different magazines.

Since 2002 she is oblate of the Benedictine abbey St. Hildegard's in Rüdesheim am Rhein.

Scientific tutoring and booklet:

2004 she graduated at Münster with a doctorate of philosophy with summa cum laude.

Additionally, she studied Gregorian semiology with Luigi Agustoni, Godehard Joppich and Johannes Berchmans Göschl.

Her doctoral dissertation Die Gesänge von Hildegard von Bingen is a standard work of music related Hildegard-research.

For the first time, it proves that the diastematic Neume script (written on staves) is of rhythmical significance.

Prior to this, Hildegard's compositions had been interpreted equalistically or mensuralistically.

Furthermore, she was editor of the scientific journal Musica sacra, published in Bärenreiter Verlag from 2010 to 2015.

As a scientific consultant, she oversees CD productions, e.g. of the ensembles Sequentia and Benjamin Bagby, Ars Chorals Coeln with Maria Jonas, and Cosmedian, Stuttgart with Stephanie and Christoph Haas.

For radio and television as well as international exhibitions, she works as mediaeval expert.

Moreover, she is involved in numerous book publications.

She lives in Hof (Bavaria), is married to cantor and composer Ludger Stühlmeyer and mother of Lea Stühlmeyer.

Stühlmeyer demonstrated that Hildegard's tone language and the ambitus, spanning up to two octaves, both meet professional, compositional standards of the 12th century.

Her scientific work proved that the parameters of the Regula Benedicti influenced her formal concept of composition.

This fuelled the prove that the songs were used within liturgy.

Her theological research of the Ordo virtutum illustrates that Hildegard mirrors here the denethic discourse of the 12th century with its protagonists Petrus Abaelarus, Anselm of Canterbury and Rupert of Deutz.

For the research project 'Music and Gender on the Internet', headed by prof. Beatrix Bochard, she authored the 'Grundseite' about Hildegard's music.