MUSIC HISTORY:

GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION & BACKGROUND

I teach two courses in Western music history. Both courses offer an introduction to Western classical music starting with Gregorian chant and ending with contemporary American art music, all contained in one jam-packed college semester. While I willingly allude to music from other cultures and continents, the course mainly deals with European music from the perspective of an American composer. And while the curriculum I'm hired to teach can be seen as Eurocentric and old-fashioned (which it is), the music is rich and I always enjoy watching the students get excited discovering something so familiar yet unknown.

As a graduate student, I was given a teaching fellowship and the opportunity to teach in Columbia University's core curriculum. I developed my own curriculum within the guidelines of the Music Humanities program and with the support of the music department staff which meets weekly to help instructors discuss curriculum and offer new approaches. I began as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in 1988, then taught as Graduate Instructor from 1989 until 1994 when I received my doctorate. During this time I gradually developed a course with my own reading and listening materials. I returned in 1998 as Adjunct Assistant Professor to teach the same course, officially entitled "Music Humanities: Masterpieces in Western Music."

In 1996, Karen Jewett, now Dean of New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Education, Paul McGhee Adult Degree Studies Division, Liberal Arts Program, invited me to teach a course very similar to the one I had developed at Columbia. So I teach the "History of Music", an introductory survey of the history of Western European art music every other semester at NYU Paul McGhee's Midtown Campus across from New York Public Public Library and Bryant Park.

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