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Howard Pollack

John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Musicology

Pianist and musicologist Howard Pollack is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Music at the University of Houston, where he has taught since 1987. Born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1952, he received his BA in music history (1969) at the University of Michigan, and his MA (January 1977) and PhD (January 1981) in musicology at Cornell University, where he wrote his doctoral thesis under William Austin.

Pollack’s research has focused largely on concert, theater, and film music of the long half century, 1890-1960. His books include Walter Piston (1982); Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and his Students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski (1992); John Alden Carpenter: A Chicago Composer (1995); Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (1999); George Gershwin: His Life and Work (2006); Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World (2012); The Ballad of John Latouche: An American Lyricist’s Life and Work (2017); and Samuel Barber: His Life and Legacy (2023).

He also co-edited German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Fusion (1890-1989) with Claus Reschke (1992), and has published book chapters as well as articles and reviews in numerous journals, including the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Musical Quarterly, Journal of the Society for American Music, American Music, Tempo, Musica Judaica, James Joyce Quarterly, Journal of Singing, International Double Reed Society Journal, Journal of Music Research, Opera Quarterly, Journal of Musicology, Journal for Musicological Research, Current Musicology, Notes, Heterofonía, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, New Grove Dictionary of American Music, Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Receptions, American NationalBiography, and Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America.

Pollack further has lectured and given lecture-recitals at colleges and arts organizations in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and across the United States, and has appeared in film documentaries and on such American radio shows as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, the Voice of America, and Fresh Air as well as on British, Australian, New Zealand, and German radio.

Among other grants and awards, he has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities; a Newberry Library Travel Fellowship; a Kurt Weill Foundation Travel and Research Grant; the Irving Lowens Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society forAmerican Music; two Deems Taylor Awards, the Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography (in the concert music field), and the Timothy White Award for Outstanding Musical Biography (in the pop music field) from ASCAP; and an Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections