Musicologist Derek Katz, assistant professor of music, is in his second year on the Lawrence Conservatory faculty. In his first year he was published in The New York Times, contributed two essays to publications of the San Francisco Opera, and delivered a pre-concert lecture for the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall.
He also presented a paper titled "The Strange Case of the Turkish Turncoat, or Why Can't Mr. Broucek Speak Czech?" at the Czech Cultural Studies Workshop at the University of Michigan and appeared on a panel, "Janácek and the Speech-Melody Myth, Part II," at the American Musicological Association national meeting.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, he holds the doctorate in musicology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and studied under a Fulbright Fellowship at Die Freie Universität Berlin.
At Lawrence, in addition to teaching a variety of music history survey courses, he offered an upper-level course in Nationalism and Czech Music in the 2001 Spring Term, is looking forward to teaching The Faust Story in Music and Literature this year, advises the student organizations Mortar Board and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and occasionally plays the viola.
Katz is a highly regarded authority on Czech music, and a specialist in the operas of Leos Janácek. Some of his other research interests include the history of opera, 20th-century American studies, and comparative arts.
