Dr. Inga Behrendt (*1978) studied Cembalo (Vordiplom 2002) and music of the Catholic Church (A-Exam 2005) at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany. During this time, she was employed as church musician in Essen-Schönebeck and lead several chant scholas. She was an artistic and research assistant of Prof. Dr. Stefan Klöckner in Essen and Prof. Frater Cornelius Pouderoijen OSB in Vienna (2005/2006).

At the same time as she was completing her Ph.D under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Franz-Karl Paßl (Graz), finishing in November 2009, she taught Gregorian Chant and German Liturgical Music in Prof. Klöckner's stead in Essen (2006 - 2008). Her doctoral dissertation, Der Seckauer Liber ordinarius A-Gu 756 - Edition und Kommentar, provides an edition and commentary of the Liber ordinarius A-Gu 756 from 1345.

From 2007 till 2009 Inga Behrendt was a member of the Grazer Choralschola, conducted by Franz Karl Praßl.
Currently she conducts two own choirs, the Schola Uncinus, a Schola of soloists, and the Ökumenische Choralschola Arnstein-Obernhof in the parish of Kloster Arnstein in Germany (near Limburg). Together with Diethelm Gresch she organized a plainchant festival Hören über Grenzen – Conceptio per aurem in the former Premonstratensian monastery of Arnstein between May and October 2010.

Since 2007, she has been a member of the German-speaking section of the AISCGre and is currently member of the board of directors of the German section of the Associatione Studi di Canto Gregoriano (AISCGre). From 2003 onward, she has worked as a member of a study group that publishes restitutions to the melodies of the Graduale Romanum (each half year, Beiträge zur Gregorianik, ConBrio-Verlag, Regensburg). She has given many seminars and lectures on Gregorian Chant.
She has been employed by the Catholic University of Leuven since February 2009 on their project to develop a catalogue of antiphoners in Flemish archives, as well as on a second endeavour, completed in September 2011, to transcribe and edit the compositions of Leonard Paminger (1495-1567 / Passau).

Currently, she is the recipient of support from the Dey Foundation (Limburg). In the winter semester 2010/2011 she is teaching two lecture hours a week in the musicology department at the Staatlichen Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim. The course is called Musik im Spannungsfeld zwischen Reformation und Gegenreformation.

She is member in a trans-Atlantic undertaking by two musicologists, Kate Helsen (University of Toronto / University of Western Ontario) and Inga Behrendt, and a computer scientist with a specialisation in document analysis, Alan Sexton (University of Birmingham), called The Optical Neume Recognition Project. The aim of this project is to design and develop a historical document analysis system as a computer assistant for musicologists and historians to help them in their work in studying early western musical manuscripts. They have chosen to focus first on the liturgical Office book St. Gallen Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 390/391, called Antiphonar Hartker from around 1000. Please see for further information about the project:  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~aps/research/projects/neumes/project-description.php

Research interests

• Liturgy and plainchant – topics of interaction and interference especially in the Roman order in Augustinian and Premonstratensian convents
• Neumes and mensural notation – causes and motivations that determine the choice of graphic signs for a heard melody
• Chant and liturgical practices in Premonstratensian abbeys in Flanders and the Rhineland
• Style galant – moments of declamation in compositions of the 18th century Germany