Music History

School of Music

Music History

Music history and literature courses integrate historical, cultural, theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches for understanding music from different perspectives and foster an environment of collaborative research and teaching.

With seven full-time and affiliated faculty members, all very actively involved in research in their respective areas, the program fosters an exciting environment for collaborative research and inquiry in and outside the classroom.

A vibrant guest lecture series exposes students to outstanding scholars in the field and to the latest research in academic music studies.

The area offers a wide range of music history, ethnomusicology and literature courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. These classes support students in all areas and majors as well as an undergraduate concentration in music history and a master’s degree in music history.

The faculty is devoted to training not only the music historians of the future but also building informed and successful musicians with exceptional critical listening and communication skills.

Music History Faculty

Ellen Exner

Ellen Exner's scholarship focuses on 18th-century German music, particularly that produced by the Bach family and musicians working in Berlin during the reign of Frederick II of Prussia. Exner received prestigious research fellowships from the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies as well as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The quality of her teaching was also recognized twice with awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Education from Harvard's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

Kunio Hara

Kunio Hara's primary areas of research include operas of Puccini, 19th- and 20th-century music, and exoticism in music. He is also interested in the development of Western music in Japan since the 19th century. He has presented papers at various national and international musicological and interdisciplinary conferences including the meetings of American Musicological Society and American Comparative Literature Association.

Julie Hubbert

Julie Hubbert's areas of specialization are film music, American music, 19th- and 20th-century music and Mahler and the Second Viennese School. She has published numerous works on the topics. She is the recipient of the 2012 Cantey Outstanding Faculty Award and the 2006 Michael J. Mungo Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Birgitta Johnson

Birgitta Johnson's research and teaching areas of interests include African American and African music; music and worship in African American churches; musical change and identity in Black popular music; music in African American megachurches, sacred music in the African diaspora, and community archiving. A multi-instrumentalist and singer, she has performed professionally and/or recorded with artists and ensembles from a variety of genres.

Greg Stuart

Greg Stuart's work explores various alternative percussion techniques, including sustained friction, gravity-based sounds via small grains, sympathetic vibration and electronic instruments. He has performed at many festivals and venues and has recorded for such labels as Edition Wandelweiser, Gravity Wave, Cathnor, Engraved Glass and Presqu’île.

Sarah Williams

Sarah F. Williams specializes in early modern English music and culture including 17th-century popular music, theatrical music and broadside balladry. Her work focuses on musical representations of witchcraft and magic, economies of gender in early modern European culture, the 16th- and 17th-century English cheap print trade, as well as emo rock and expressions of masculinity in contemporary American popular music.