Education
Ph.D., M.F.A. in Music History, Princeton University, June 1994, November 1997
M.A. in Music History, McGill University, February 1993
Diploma in Russian, Moscow Pedagogical Institute, May 1992
B. Mus cum laude in Music History and Literature, University of Toronto, November 1987
Academic Appointments
Princeton University, Department of Music, 1997–.
Professor, 2008–
Associate Professor, 2005–2008
Assistant Professor, 1998–2005
Lecturer, 1997–98
Princeton University, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, 2017–.
Professor
University of Southern California, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Spring 2019.
Visiting Professor
University of Pennsylvania, Department of Music, Spring 2011.
Visiting Professor
Harvard University, Department of Music, Spring 2010.
Visiting Professor
Honors and Awards
National & International
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2011
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, March 2001
Institute of Advanced Studies, Mellon Fellowship for Full-Year Membership, February 2001 (declined)
Alfred Einstein Award, November 1999
American Musicological Society Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (AMS 50), March 1996
University
Award for Excellence in Alumni Education, Princeton University, 2012
Phi Beta Kappa Society Teaching Award, 2006
Howard Behrman Fellow in the Humanities, Princeton University, 2005-07
Arthur. H. Scribner Bicentennial Preceptorship, Princeton University, 2002-05
Charlotte Elizabeth Proctor Honorary Fellowship, Princeton University, May 1995
Elsie and Walter W. Naumberg Fellowship, Princeton University, July 1993 and 1994
Publications
BOOKS
1. Moskva in progress, advance contract with Random House
2. Shostakovich in progress, advance contract with Norton
3. Mirror in the Sky: The Music of Stevie Nicks in progress, advance contract with University of California Press
4. Tchaikovsky in progress, advance contract with Yale University Press
5. Roxy Music's Avalon. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
6. Bolshoi Confidential. New York: Liveright; London: HarperCollins; Toronto: Random House, 2016; French edition: Paris: Editions Belfond; Japanese edition: Tokyo: Hakusui-sha; Portuguese edition: Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record LTDA, 2017; Russian edition: Moscow: Exmo.
Reviews:
Booklist Starred Review; Booklist Editors’ Choice 2016; Kirkus Starred Review; Lucy Ash in The Guardian, 31 October 2016; Bob Blaisdell in The Christian Science Monitor, 10 October 2016; Deborah Bull in The Spectator, 10/17/24 December 2016; Rupert Christiansen in Literary Review, October 2016; Lee Christofis in Australian Book Review, January-February 2017; Debra Craine in The Times of London, 22 October 2016; Sarah Crompton in The Guardian, 10 October 2016; Catriona Kelly in Times Literary Supplement, 20 January 2017; David Jays in The Times of London, 16 October 2016; Daria Khitrova in The New York Times, 13 November 2016; Madison Mainwaring, New Republic, 14 October 2016; Mark Monahan in The Telegraph, 13 November 2016; Douglas Smith in The Wall Street Journal, 15 October 2016.
Finalist for the Pushkin House Prize.
6. The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev. London: Random House, 2013; Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013; paper, 2014.
Reviews:
BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week; The Daily Beast [“Hot Reads”], 18 March 2013; Kirkus Starred Review; The New Yorker [“Briefly Noted”], 6 May 2013, 75; Publishers Weekly’s Top 10: Music; John Carey in The Sunday Times, 10 March 2013; Orlando Figes in The New York Review of Books, 6 March 2014; Amanda Foreman in The New Statesman, 21 March 2013; Paul Griffiths in Times Literary Supplement, 29 November 2013; Stuart Kelly in The Scotsman, 16 March 2013; Norman Lebrecht in The Wall Street Journal, 15 March 2013; Alexandra Popoff in The Boston Globe, 23 March 2013; Lettie Ransley in The Observer, 11 May 2013; Stephen Walsh in The Guardian, 29 March 2013.
7. The People’s Artist: Prokofiev’s Soviet Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; paper, 2010.
Reviews:
Bradley Bambarger in Listen [“Back in the USSR”], May/June 2009, 75; Diego Fischerman in El Pais [“El hombre que regresó al frío”], 10 July 2009; Pauline Fairclough in Music & Letters 90, no. 4 (2009): 719–22; Sheila Fitzpatrick in London Review of Books [“Many Promises”], 14 May 2009; David Gutman in Gramophone, February 2009, 103; Michael Kimmelman in The New York Review of Books [“Bad Bargains for Russian Music”], 13 August 2009; Arlo McKinnon in Opera News 76, no. 6 (2011); Neil Minturn in Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (2010): 239; Stephen Press in Russian Review 71, no. 1 (2012): 132–33;
R. J. Stove in National Observer, Autumn 2009; Andrew Thomson in The Musical Times, Summer 2009, 110–14; Elizabeth Wilson in bookforum [“A Composer’s Notes”], June/July/Aug 2009.
8. Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement. Oakland: The University of California Press, 2002; second, revised edition, 2019.
Reviews:
Philip Borg-Wheeler in Classical Music, 24 May 2003, 25; Philip Ross Bullock in Slavic Review 64, no. 2 (2005): 476–77; Ellon Carpenter in The Russian Review 62, no. 3 (2003): 457–58; Pauline Fairclough in Slavonica 9, no. 2 (2003): 137–38; Marina Frolova-Walker in Journal of the American Musicological Society 59, no. 2 (2006): 507–13; Helen Galbraith in The Modern Language Review 99, no. 3 (2004): 849–51; Anatole Leikin in Journal of Musicological Research 22, no. 4 (2003): 409-13; Gerard McBurney in Times Literary Supplement [“At the Sign of the Queen of Spades”], 27 June 2003, 24; Anna Nisnevich in Cambridge Opera Journal [“Keys to the Mysteries”] 15, no. 2 (2003): 199–206; Karin Pendle in Choice, 40, no. 8 (2003); Elizabeth Yellen in Slavic and East European Journal 48, no. 1 (2004): 142–43.
EDITIONS
1. [with Klára Móricz] Funeral Games in Honor of Arthur Vincent Lourié. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
2. Sergey Prokofiev and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008; includes my translation of 98 letters between Prokofiev and Levon Atovmyan.
3. [with Caryl Emerson] Boris Godunov. Special issue of Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Association 14 (2007).
4. [with Stephanie Jordan] Sound Moves. Select essays from the international conference on music and dance, Opera Quarterly 22, no. 1 (2006). The conference was held from 5–6 November 2005, at the Center for Dance Research, Roehampton University of Surrey, London, UK.
5. Kiselev, Vadim. A Bouquet for Tamara Karsavina [Buket dlya Tamary Karsavinoi]. Moscow: Kompozitor, 1998.
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
1. "Gliere's Light Style" (forthcoming in edited collection)
2. "Still in Search of Satanilla" (forthcoming in 19th-Century Music)
3.“Burning for You: Rachmaninoff’s Francesca da Rimini” (forthcoming).
4. “About that Chord, and About Scriabin as a Mystic” (forthcoming).
5. “V poiskakh Satanillï, chast’ II” (forthcoming).
6. “What Next? Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony as Sequel and Prequel,” Twentieth-Century Music 16, no. 2 (June 2019): 1-27.
7. “Galina Ustvol’skaya v istorii muzïki, vne yeyo i za yeyo predelami.” In NestandArt: Zabïtïye eksperimentï v russkoy kul’ture, 1934-64 гг., edited by Julia Vaingurt and William Nickell (forthcoming).
8. “Galina Ustvolskaya Outside, Inside, and Beyond Music History,” Journal of Musicology 36, no. 1 (2019): 96-129.
9. “The Golden Cockerel, Censored and Uncensored.” In Rimsky-Korsakov and His World, edited by Marina Frolova-Walker (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 177-95.
10. “Prokofiev: Reflections on an Anniversary, and a Plea for a New Critical Edition,” Iskusstvo muzïki. Teoriya i istoriya 16 (2017): 6-20.
11. “Landed: Cole Porter’s Ballet.” In A Cole Porter Companion, edited by Don M. Randel, Matthew Shaftel, and Susan Forscher Weiss (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 57-69.
12. “‘Zolotoy Petushok’: zametki ob opere, kotoraya stala operoy-baletom i zatem baletom.” In Triumf russkoy muzïki. Rimskiy-Korsakov – okno v mir, ed. L. O. Ader (St. Petersburg: SPb GBUK, 2016), 67-76.
13. “Debussy’s Toy Stories.” Journal of Musicology 30, no. 3 (2013): 424–59.
14. “Koussevitzky’s Ghostwriter” and “Epilogue: The Silver Age and Tinseltown.” In Funeral Games in Honor of Arthur Vincent Lourié, edited by Klára Móricz and Simon Morrison. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
15. [with Nelly Kravetz] “The Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of October, or How the Specter of Communism Haunted Prokofiev.” Journal of Musicology 23, no. 2 (2006): 227–62.
16. “Russia’s Lament.” In Word, Music, History: A Festschrift for Caryl Emerson [Stanford Slavic Studies Volumes 29–30], edited by Lazar Fleishman, Gabriella Safran, and Michael Wachtel (2005): 657–81.
17. “Shostakovich as Industrial Saboteur: Observations on The Bolt.” In Shostakovich and His World, edited by Laurel Fay. 117–61, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
18. “The Origins of Daphnis et Chloé (1912).” 19th-Century Music 28, no. 1 (2004): 50–76.
19. [with Lesley-Anne Sayers] “Prokofiev’s Le Pas d’Acier (1925): How the Steel was Tempered.” In Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle, edited by Neil Edmunds (London: Routledge, 2004), 81–104.
20. “The Semiotics of Symmetry, or Rimsky-Korsakov’s Operatic History Lesson.” Cambridge Opera Journal 13, no. 3 (2001): 261–93.
21. “‘Ognennyi angel’: tret’ya versiya.” Muzykal’naya akademiya 2 (2000): 221–28.
22. “Skryabin and the Impossible.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 51, no. 2 (1998): 283–330; reprint, Journal of the Scriabin Society of America 7, no. 1 (2002–3): 29–66.
23. “Sergei Prokofiev’s Semyon Kotko as a Representative Example of Socialist Realism.” In Musik als Text: Bericht über den Internationalen Musikwissenschaftlichen Kongreß der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, edited by Hermann Danuser and Tobias Plebuch, vol. 2, 494–97. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998.
SHORTER WRITINGS
1. "Canceling Russian Artists Plays into Putin's Hands." The Washington Post, 11 March 2022.
2. “Notes on the Notes.” In Three Loves for Three Oranges, edited by Dassia N. Posner and
Kevin Bartig (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021), 367-73.
3. “Foreword.” In Rethinking Prokofiev, edited by Rita McAllister and Christine Guillaumier
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), xi-xiv.
4. “Giselle: Between Light and Dark.” In Adolphe Adam: Giselle, 137-41. Moscow: The State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia, 2019.
5. “Tchaikovsky: Polestar of the music of the future,” Times Literary Supplement, 21 March 2019; https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/tchaikovsky-polestar-music-future/.
6. [with Jason Wang and Nicholas Soter] “Whipped Cream – Viennese Ballet and Pop Surrealism Meet Dark Medicine,” Journal of the American Medical Association 321, no. 7 (19 February 2019): 630-31.
7 Liner notes for Bryan Ferry, Babylon Berlin, BMG, released 30 November 2018.
8. “Experience Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet – Without Dance,” Playbill, 23 January 2018.
9. “Art in an Artless Age.” Times Literary Supplement, 22 July 2016, 16-17.
10. “What the Candidates’ Rally Music Says About Them.” time.com, 26 May 2016.
11. “The Spirit Ascends: Scriabin and the ‘Mystic’ Chord.” Times Literary Supplement, 20 November 2015, 14–15.
12. “Waist-deep: In the Mire of Russian and Western Debates about Tchaikovsky.” Times Literary Supplement, 1 May 2015, 14–15.
13. “Emperor Putin’s War on the Truth.” Op Ed. International New York Times, 3 October 2014.
14. “The Bolshoi’s Spinning Dance of Power.” Op Ed. International New York Times, 26 November 2013.
12. “Galina Vishnevskaya.” The Threepenny Review 135 (Fall 2013): 3–4.
15. “More Tales from the Bolshoi.” London Review of Books 35, no. 13 (4 July 2013): 21–22; “Yet More Tales from the Bolshoi.” LRBblog, 10 July 2013.
16. “Prokofiev’s Kazakh Songs, Lost and Found.” Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation 23 (May 2012): 16–17.
17. “The Bolshoi Reopened.” The Threepenny Review 129 (Spring 2012): 22.
18. “The Bolshoi’s Latest Act,” NYRblog [The New York Review of Books blog], 12 November 2011.
19. “Live Music.” The Threepenny Review 127 (Fall 2011): 8–9.
20. “Lina’s Childhood.” Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation (November 2010): 3–14
21. “Romeo and Juliet’s Happy Ending.” Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation (May 2009): 3-9.
22. “Khronika sozdaniya baleta/A Chronicle.” In Sergei Prokofiev: Cinderella, 54–58. Moscow: The State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia, 2006; reprint, in Bolshoi Ballet: 50th Anniversary Season, 32 33. London: Victor Hochhauser, 2006.
23. “Zavodskoy balet Shostakovicha/Shostakovich’s Factory Ballet.” In Dmitriy Shostakovich: Bolt, 24–31. Moscow: The State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia, 2005.
24. “Tonya (1942): Reflections on an Unreleased Film and an Unpublished Score.” Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation 9 (May 2005): 12–17.
25. “The ‘World of Art’ and Music.” In Mir Iskusstva: Russia’s Age of Elegance. Omaha. Minneapolis. Princeton. 4 June 2005 – 11 June 2006, 37–43. St. Petersburg: Palace Editions, 2005.
26. “In an Invisible City, a Mansion of Musical History.” The New York Times, Arts & Leisure Section, 13 July 2003.
27. “At White Nights, Music from Dark Days.” The New York Times, Arts & Leisure Section, 7 July 2002.
28. “Prokofiev and Bryusov.” Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation 3 (May 2002): 13–15.
29. Liner Notes for Brian Asawa: Vocalise, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, RCA, released 9 March 1999.
ESSAY-REVIEWS
1. “The Bedroom of a Sorcerer”; Marius Petipa: The Emperor’s Ballet Master, by Nadine
Meisner. London Review of Books 42, no. 7 (2 April 2020).
2. Ot Ayvza do Adamsa: amerikanskaya muzïka XX veka, by Ol’ga Manulkina, American Music 35, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 133-40.
3. Shostakovich Studies 2, edited by Pauline Fairclough, and Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film, edited by Alexander Ivashkin and Andrew Kirkman. Music & Letters 91, no. 1 (2014): 121–25.
4. Diaries 1924-33: Prodigal Son, by Sergey Prokofiev, translated by Anthony Phillips. London Review of Books 35, no. 6 (21 March 2013): 23–25.
5. Russian Music and Nationalism: From Glinka to Stalin, by Marina Frolova-Walker. Journal of the American Musicological Society 65, no. 1 (2012): 266–72.
6. Rostropovich: The Musical Life of the Great Cellist, Teacher, and Legend, by Elizabeth Wilson. Music & Letters 91, no. 1 (2010): 83–90.
7. On Russian Music, by Richard Taruskin. Slavic Review 68, no. 2 (2009): 398–401.
8. Sergey Prokof’yev: Dnevnik 1907-1933, edited by Svyatoslav Prokof’yev. Journal of the American Musicological Society 58, no. 1 (2005): 233–43; reprint, Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Association 10 (November 2005): 30–35.
9. Defining Russia Musically, by Richard Taruskin, Journal of the American Musicological Society 53, no. 2 (2000): 412–25.
10. Shostakovich: A Life, by Laurel Fay. Journal of the American Musicological Society 53, no. 2 (2000): 426–36; reprint, The Shostakovich Casebook, edited by Malcolm Brown, 346–59. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
11. Wagner in Russia, by Rosamund Bartlett. Cambridge Opera Journal 8, no. 1 (1996): 83–92.
REVIEWS
1. Analytical Approaches to 20th-Century Russian Music: Tonality: Modernism, Serialism. Edited by Inessa Bazayev and Christopher Segall. Slavic Review (forthcoming).
2. Prokofiev’s Soviet Operas, by Nathan Seinen. Slavic Review 79, no. 3 (2020): 41-42.
3. The Lost Pianos of Siberia, by Sophy Roberts. Times Literary Supplement, 7 February 2020; https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/lost-pianos-of-siberia-sophy-roberts-book-review/.
4. The Notebooks of Alexander Skryabin, translated by Simon Nicholls and Michael Pushkin. Music & Letters (forthcoming).
5. Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera, by Gundula Kreuzer. Times Literary Supplement, 12 April 2019; https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/fog-boys/.
6. Classics for the Masses: Shaping Soviet Musical Identity Under Lenin and Stalin, by Pauline Fairclough. Transposition. Musique et sciences sociales 7 (2018); https://journals.openedition.org/transposition/2353.
7. DVD Review: Swan Lake(s). Nineteenth-Century Music Review 15, no. 1 (April 2018): 141-44.
8. Virtuosi Abroad: Soviet Music and Imperial Competition during the Early Cold War, 1945-58, by Kiril Tomoff. Slavic Review 75, no. 3 (2016): 726-29.
9. Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” and Russian Culture, by Marina Rizarev. Slavic and East European Journal 59, no. 4 (2015): 644-45.
10. Swans of the Kremlin, by Christina Ezrahi. The Russian Review 72, no. 3 (2013): 500–1.
11. Stravinsky’s Ballets, by Charles M. Joseph. Slavic Review 72, no. 1 (2013): 192–93.
12. The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire, by James Loeffler. Musica Judaica Online Reviews [http://mjoreviews.org/2011/03/21/the-most-musical-nation-jews-and-culture-in-the-late-russian-empire/#more-639].
13. Harmony and Discord: Music and the Transformation of Russian Cultural Life, by Lynn M. Sargeant. Slavic Review 70, no. 4 (2011): 945–46.
14. Musical Cultures in Seventeenth-Century Russia, by Claudia R. Jensen. The American Historical Review 116, no. 5 (December 2011): 1598–99.
15. Die Opern Sergej Prokofyews, by Sigrid Neef. Music & Letters 92, no. 1 (2011): 151–53.
16. Anton Rubinstein: A Life in Music, by Philip S. Taylor. Slavic and East European Journal 53, no. 2 (2009): 317–18.
17. Polish Music Since Szymanowski, by Adrian Thomas. Canadian American Slavic Studies 41, no. 2 (2007): 250–51.
18. Prokofiev’s Ballets for Diaghilev, by Stephen D. Press. Slavic Review 65, no. 4 (2006): 858–59.
19. Rethinking Dance History: A Reader, edited by Alexandra Carter. Research in Dance Education 7, no. 1 (2006): 113–16.
20. Sleeping Beauty: A Legend in Progress, by Tim Scholl. Slavic and East European Journal 49, no. 1 (2005): 150–52.
21. Music Dances: Balanchine Choreographs Stravinsky, educational video distributed by the George Balanchine Foundation. Echo: A Music-Centered Journal 5, no. 2 (2003), online.
22. Prokofiev: From Russia to the West 1891–1935, by David Nice. Slavic and East European Journal 47, no. 3 (2003): 520–21; reprint, Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Association 6 (November 2003): 27.
23. Moving Music: Dialogues with Music in Twentieth-Century Ballet, by Stephanie Jordan. Research in Dance Education 3, no. 2 (2002): 197–200.
24. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: the Complete Sacred Choral Works, edited by Vladimir Morosan. MLA Notes 58, no. 4 (2002): 939–42.
25. Intersections and Transpositions: Russian Music, Literature, and Society, edited and introduced by Andrew Wachtel. MLA Notes 56, no. 1 (1999): 120–22.
26. Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev, edited and translated by Harlow Robinson. MLA Notes 55, no. 3 (1999): 670–72.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES/BIBLIOGRAPHIES
1. Oxford Bibliographies Online: Sergey Prokofiev.
2. Oxford Bibliographies Online: Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
TRANSLATIONS
1. Derevyannaya kniga/Wood Book. St. Petersburg: Vita Nova, 2009.
Academic Papers
1. “Malcolm’s Archive,” Indiana University, 28 September, 2019.
2. “In Search of Satanella Part 2,” University of Southern California, 1 March 2019.
3. “What Next? Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony as Sequel and Prequel,” Indiana University, 19 January 2018.
4. “Nureyev: The Ballet that Wasn’t (Until it Was),” Plenary Session, Dance Studies Association Conference, Columbus, Ohio, 19 October 2017.
5. “Ustvolskaya and Reckoning,” “Found in Time” symposium, University of Chicago, 5 October 2017.
6. “Tchaikovsky’s Finances,” symposium on “The Russian Century,” Yale University, 30 September 2016.
7. “The Salon (?) of Nadezhda von Mekk,” Association Répertoire International d’Iconographie Musicale Annual Meeting, St. Petersburg, Russia, 7 September 2016.
8. “Balletic Falsehood,” keynote address for the symposium “Prokofiev and the Russian Tradition,” Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 26 February 2016.
9. “About that Chord,” keynote address for the symposium “(Re) Hearing Scriabin in the 21st Century,” Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 22 October 2015.
10. “Naked Music, Naked Dance,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 17 November 2012.
11. “Ghosts: On Shostakovich,” University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 11 February 2011; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 21 February 2011.
12. “F. 1929, Op. 4,” symposium on Soviet music in 1948, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, 28 November 2009.
13. “Koussevitzky’s Ghostwriter,” symposium on Arthur Lourié and Silver Age culture, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, 31 October 2009.
14. “The Ballets Suédois, the Ballets Russes, and Historiography,” symposium on Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Columbia University, New York, NY, 24 April 2009.
15. “The Missing History of Soviet Music,” CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY, 27 February; The Peabody Institute, Baltimore, MD, 9 December 2009; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 8 March 2010; Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 22 April 2010; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 29 April 2010; Hong Kong University, Hong Kong, 23 January 2013; Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China, 27 November 2013.
16. “Romeo and Juliet’s Happy Ending,” symposium on Russian ballet, Barnard College, New York, NY, 13 October 2007; Center for Dance Research, Roehampton University of Surrey, London, UK, 8 May 2008; Prokofiev study day, Goldsmiths College, London, UK, 10 May 2008; Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 20 December 2010; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 21 December 2010; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 15 March 2011.
17. “Playing Safe,” Symposium on Culture and Power in the Soviet Union, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 19 May 2007.
18. “Shostakovich, Bureaucratic Muddle, and Ideological Music,” Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY, 16 September, and Cambridge University [Robin Orr Lecture],
Cambridge, UK, 25 October 2006.
19. “Prokofiev Stalinist Works, De-Stalinized,” symposium in honor of Robert Maguire, Columbia University, New York, NY, 18 March 2006.
20. “The Unknown Prokofiev,” Yale University, New Haven, CT, 17 November 2005; Princeton University [President’s Lecture], Princeton, NJ, 21 November 2006; Macalester College, St. Paul, MN, 20 April 2007.
21. [with Lesley-Anne Sayers] “The Influence of Early Soviet Approaches to Theatre on Prokofiev’s Approach to Le Pas d’Acier (1925),” Center for Dance Research, Roehampton University of Surrey, London, UK, 6 November 2005.
22. Respondent to the panel “Russian Modernism,” American Musicological Society Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 29 October 2005.
23. “Prokofiev’s Soviet Ballet,” Peter Gram Swing Annual Lecture, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, 31 March 2005.
24. “The Unperformed Boris Godunov,” American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 6 December 2004.
25. “Prokofiev’s Emigration,” Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 28 April 2004; Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 16 October 2004; University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, 3 February 2005.
26. “Tonya (1942): Reflections on an Unreleased Film and an Unpublished Score,” University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 5 March 2004.
27. “Ravel’s Missing Ballet,” Center for Dance Research, Roehampton University of Surrey, London, UK, 6 February and The Peabody Institute, Baltimore, MD, 18 March 2003; truncated version read at the American Musicological Society Annual Meeting, Houston, TX, 14 November 2003.
28. Three colloquia on ballet (“Kto sozdal ‘Petrushku’?,” “‘Stal’noi skok’: konstruktsiya, dekonstruktsiya, rekonstruktsiya,” and “Politika ‘Svadebki’”), Institute Pro Arte, St. Petersburg, Russia, 25 February, 27 February, and 1 March 2002.
29. Participant on the panel “Post-Soviet Research into Russian Liturgical Music: Methodological and Logistical Challenges,” American Musicological Society Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 15 November 2001.
30. “Chaikovsky and Pastiche: Notes on Pikovaya dama,” University of California at Davis, 27 April, University of California at Berkeley, 28 April, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 1 May, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27 October 2000.
31. Respondent to the panel “Sound Histories: Audio Technology and the Social Uses of Sound and Music,” National Communication Association Convention, New York, NY, 21 November 1998.
32. “Petrushka’s End,” Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2 April 1998; truncated version read at the American Musicological Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 1 November 1998.
33. “Rimsky-Korsakov and Religious Syncretism,” American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 21 November 1997.
34. “Skryabin and the Impossible,” University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 5 December 1996; Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, 13 January; and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 24 April 1997.
35. “Mimesis and The Fiery Angel,” American Musicological Society Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, 9 November, and American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 28 December 1996.
36. “Russkaya simvolistskaya opera: kontseptsiya i vyrazhenie,” Russian State Institute for Art Research, Moscow, Russia, 14 June 1995.
Public Appearances
PUBLIC LECTURES
1. Pre-performance lecture on Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 24 March 2020.
2. Pre-performance lecture with Peter Sellars about Stravinsky’s Persephone, Disney Hall, Los Angeles, 18-20 April, 2020.
3. “Prokofiev’s Demons,” Kennan Institute, Washington, DC, 6 February 2019.
4. “Poulenc’s House Party,” National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1 June 2013.
5. “The Composition, Re-Composition, and Re-Composition … of Prokofiev’s War and Peace, U of T/COC Opera Exchange Series, Toronto, 18 October 2008.
6. “Prokofiev’s Gambler,” lecture for The Birch Opera Event, Columbia University, New York City, 13 March 2008.
7. Pre-performance lecture on Debussy’s Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, Chaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Unsuk Chin’s Rocana, and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 8 March 2008.
8. Pre-performance lecture on Sviridov’s Small Triptych, Musorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1 November 2007.
9. “The Denunciation of Lady Macbeth,” U of T/COC Opera Exchange Series, Toronto, 3 February 2007.
10. “Russian Musical Representations of Hamlet,” Lincoln Center, New York City, 5 March 2006.
11. Pre-performance lecture on Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1 February 2005.
12. Pre-performance lecture on Musorgsky’s Destruction of Sennacherib, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, and Shostakovich’s Execution of Stepan Razin, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 10 October 2004.
13. “The Progressive 1920s,” Bard College Music Festival, “Shostakovich and His World,” 15 August 2004.
14. “Kirov Opera: Prokofiev’s Semyon Kotko [with Catherine Nepomnyashchy],” Lincoln Center, New York City, 9 July 2003.
15. “Chaikovsky’s Miracle,” Princeton University [Alumni Lecture], 22 February 2003; Georgetown University [Wagner Society], Washington, DC, 9 December 2004.
16. “How to Listen to a Movie,” Princeton University [Alumni Lecture], 12 October 2002.
17. “Prokofiev’s The Gambler,” Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 15 March 2001.
18. “Fantasy and the Overture: Notes on Chaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet,” Rutgers University, 27 January 2001.
19. “Chaikovsky and Byron,” New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Tchaikovsky Festival, 18-21 January 2001.
20. “Carmen” and “Six Characters in Search of an Author” for “Exploring Opera: Performance and Art,” Princeton, 13-16 July 2000.
21. “Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri,” Princeton, 25 October 1999.
22. “Open Theater: Conservatism and Eclecticism at the Santa Fe Opera” and “Francis Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites” for “Desert Muse: Santa Fe and the Arts [Princeton University Alumni College],” Santa Fe, NM, 12–15 August 1999.
SELECT INTERVIEWS
1. CBC The Current, 26 December 2016 (on the Bolshoi Ballet)
2. BBC Radio 4 Start of Week, 12 December 2016 (on the Bolshoi Ballet)
3. NPR Marketplace, 27 October 2016 (on the Bolshoi Ballet)
4. WNYC Radio, 10 May 2013 (on Lina Prokofiev).
5. BBC Radio 3 (London), 21 April 2013 (on Lina Prokofiev).
6. BBC World News (London), 21 April 2013 (on Lina Prokofiev).
7. DR P2 (Copenhagen), 19 April 2012, broadcast on 21 April (program on Shostakovich).
8. Cornell University Chronicle Online, 15 March 2011.
9. BBC Radio 3 (Belfast), 3 August 2010 (“Scriabin in Colour”), broadcast on 21 August 2010.
10. WFMT Radio (Chicago), 12 April 2010.
11. Newsweek, 31 July 2009, article (“Hold Music’s Complex Science”), posted 13 August 2009.
12. Telekanal Zvezda (Moscow), 10 June 2009.
13. BBC Radio 3 (Cardiff), 10 August 2007 (for the “Real History of Opera” program), broadcast on 9 October 2007.
14. Princeton Alumni Weekly, 20 July 2007, article (“Searching for Prokofiev”) published 26 September 2007.
15. BBC World Service, 11 April 2007, broadcast on 14 April 2007.
16. WNYC Radio’s “Soundcheck,” 20 August 2004.
17. BBC Radio 3 (Cardiff), 3 July 2003, broadcast on 3 August 2003.
18. Princeton Weekly Bulletin, 19 June 2003, article (“Music Scholar Pursues Research from Russia to the Barre”) posted 4 August 2003.
Productions
BALLET/DANCE PRODUCTIONS
Satanella (in progress)
Edek (in progress)
Within the Quota (2017)
Princeton University Ballet and Penguin Café (London) staging, on May 4, of Vince Greene and Simon Morrison’s restored and rescored version of a ballet-pantomime composed by Cole Porter for the Ballets Suédois in 1923.
Select Press Coverage
1. “Cole Porter’s Pro-Immigration Ballet Gets A Trump-Era Revival,” NPR, 23 May 2017.
2. “Ballet Tackles Trump’s Travel Ban,” BBC News, 2 July 2017.
John Alden Carpenter’s Krazy Kat and Debussy’s The Toy Box (2010)
Prokofiev’s Music for Athletes/Fizkul’turnaya muzyka (2009)
Romeo and Juliet (2008)
I restored the scenario and, with Gregory Spears, the score of the original (1935) version of this ballet for the Mark Morris Dance Group. The project involved orchestrating act IV (featuring a happy ending) from Prokofiev’s annotations and rearranging the order and adjusting the content of acts I-III. This version of the ballet was premiered on 4 July 2008 and began an international tour the following September.
Select Press Coverage
1. “Merriment (and Eternal Love) in Both Their Houses,” New York Times, 15 May 2009.
2. “Mark Morris Dance Group to perform original ‘Romeo & Juliet’,” The Virginian-Pilot, 7 May 2009.
3. “In Fair Verona,” The Threepenny Review, Spring 2009.
4. “Romeo and Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare,” Stage, 10 November 2008.
5. “Stalin’s star-crossed lovers,” The Observer, 9 November 2008.
6. “V Londone proshla prem’era neobychnoy postanovki baleta Prokof’eva ‘Romeo i Dzhul’etta’,” Pervyi kanal, 6 November 2008.
7. “More sweet, less sorrow,” The Guardian, 3 November 2008.
8. “Londontsy uvidyat ‘Romeo i Dzhul’ettu’ so stsastlivym kontsom,” Lenta, 21 October 2008.
9. “Romeo and Juliet with a Happy Ending?” Times of London, 20 October 2008.
10. “Happy Endings,” Voice of Dance, 26 September 2008.
11. “Romeo i Dzhul’etta ne umirayut,” Kul’tura, 17-23 July 2008.
12. “Star-Crossed Lovers Saved!” Village Voice, 16 July 2008.
13. “A Morris-Prokofiev Collaboration,” Wall Street Journal, 8 July 2008.
14. “Morris’s ‘Romeo’: A Bloodless Valentine,” Washington Post, 8 July 2008.
15. “Modern Romantics,” The Phoenix, 8 July 2008.
16. “Romeo, Romeo,” The New Yorker, 7 July 2008.
17. “The Dictator’s Cut: Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’,” The Independent, 2 July 2008.
18. “Twist of Fate,” Vogue, 30 June 2008.
19. “O Romeo, Romeo, Wilst Though Smile at This Finale?” New York Times, Arts & Leisure Section, 29 June 2008.
20. “Harris Theater helps fund ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ballet,” Chicago Tribune, 14 February 2008.
21. “But Soft! Less Woe for Juliet and Her Romeo,” New York Times, Arts & Leisure Section, 18 November 2007.
Le Pas d’acier (2005)
Select Press Coverage
1. “By way of Le Pas d’acier Prokofiev and Iakulov’s Ursiniol comes to the stage,” Three Oranges 10 (November 2005): 36-39.
2. “Prokofiev’s Lost Ballet Found,” Dance Spirit 9, no. 6 (2005): 38.
3. “The Hum of the Turbine, the Roar of the Crowd,” Dance Now 14, no. 2 (2005): 72-75.
4. “Prokofiev’s ‘Le Pas d’acier’,” danceviewtimes: writers on dancing, 11 April 2005, online.
5. “Reaching for Original Intentions in a Prokofiev Ballet,” New York Times, 7 April 2005.
6. “A Professor Revives Prokofiev’s Robots,” New York Times, 22 February 2004.
7. “Fantomy Dyagilevskogo baleta,” Sankt-Peterburg Kommersant, 1 March 2002.
THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS
Eugene Onegin (2012)
Combined student and professional performance of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s Pushkin-based drama and Prokofiev’s 1936 incidental music as part of the international conference After the End of Music History, 9–12 February 2012, Princeton University.
Select Press Coverage
1. “Prokofiev Version of ‘Eugene Onegin’ in a Russian Weekend at Princeton,” New York Times, 13 February 2012.
Boris Godunov (2007)
This student staging brought together Alexander Pushkin’s 1825 drama and Prokofiev’s 1936 incidental music.
Select Press Coverage
1. “Torna sulla scena il Boris censurato” il giornale della musica, October 2007.
2. “Pushkin/Prokofiev ‘Godunov’ Finally Realized,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 April 2007.
3. “Masterpiece that Fell Victim to Stalin Finds US Audience,” Belfast Telegraph, 15 April 2007.
4. “V Prinstone s uspekhom proshla prem’era rekonstruktsii Meyerkhol’dovskogo ‘Borisa Godunova’,” Trud, 14 April 2007.
5. “Prokofiev’s Take on Pushkin’s Czar, Revealed at Last,” New York Times, 13 April 2007.
6. “Photo Journal: Rediscovered 1936 Boris Godunov, with Music by Prokofiev, Gets World Premiere in Princeton,” Playbill Arts, 11 April 2007.
7. “A Lost ‘Boris Godunov’ is Found and Staged,” New York Times, 11 April 2007.
8. “‘Godunov’ Rises from Stalin’s Terror,” International Herald Tribune, 11 April 2007.
Courses Taught
For Undergraduates
Global Seminar (Moscow: Culture, History, Politics, held summers of 2017 and 2019 at the Institute for Art Research, Moscow, Russia), Introduction to Music, The Ballet, Music in the Romantic Era, Modernism, Music and Film, Russian Music, Tchaikovsky, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture: Literature and the Arts
For Graduate Students
Abstraction, The Ballets Russes and Collective Creation, The Ballets Suédois, The Ontology of Music and Dance, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Russian Opera, Scandinavian Music, The Silver Age, Tchaikovsky.
Conferences Organized
International Symposium on Indigenous Communities and Climate Change, Princeton University, 6-7 December 2018; https://www.princetonisiccc.com.
After the End of Music History: An International Conference in Honor of Richard Taruskin, Princeton University, 9-12 February, 2012.
Princeton University Service
Director of the Fund for Canadian Studies, 2016–.
Executive Committee for the Program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, 2013–.
Faculty Representative to the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, 2008–11.
Director of Graduate Studies, Music Department, 2006–7, 2010–11, Spring 2013, 2017-18.
Freshman Advisor, 2000-01, 2002–3, 2005–7, 2008–.
Committee on Discipline, 2000–1.
Undergraduate Representative (Director of Undergraduate Studies), 2000–1, Spring 2003, 2004-5.
Professional Service
Guggenheim Foundation, Referee (Fellowship Applications in Music Research), 2018, 2019.
National Endowment of the Humanities, Adjudicator (Fellowship Applications in Music and Dance), 2017, 2020.
[with Peter Schmelz], Series Editor, Russian Music Studies, Indiana University Press, 2016–.
Organizing Committee for the International Symposium “Prokofiev in the 21st Century,” Glinka National Museum Consortium, Moscow, Russia, 2016.
Trustee of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation, 2010–15; President, 2011–15.
Communications Committee, American Musicological Society, 2017 –
Publications Committee, American Musicological Society, 2013–17.
Editor, Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Association, 2010–15.
Scholar in Residence, Bard Music Festival, Summer 2008.
Editorial Board, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 2007–10.
Committee, AHJ/AMS 50 Dissertation Fellowships, American Musicological Society, 2006–9.
Reader reports provided for manuscripts and articles submitted to Boydell & Brewer Ltd., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Indiana University Press, W. W. Norton & Sons, Oxford University Press, University of California Press, University of Rochester Press, Yale University Press, Acta Musicologica, American Music, Cambridge Opera Journal, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Journal of the American Musicological Association, Journal of Musicology, Music & Letters, Musical Quarterly, Russian Review, and Slavic Review.