Lecture: Elizabeth Craft, Musicologist

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"Headfirst into a Political Abyss": The Political Reception of Hamilton

Elizabeth Craft is a musicologist whose scholarship crosses disciplinary boundaries to examine the music and culture of the United States. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and also holds degrees from the College of William and Mary and the University of Maryland. An experienced and dedicated teacher, Craft has taught courses on music pedagogy, classical music history, and American popular music at Harvard, Northeastern University, and Wellesley College.

In her research Craft explores how music conveys sociopolitical values and constructs national identity, focusing especially on musical theater from its inception through the present. Her article on the marketing of the musical In the Heights appears in Studies in Musical Theater (2011). She has also published on the influence of French music pedagogue Nadia Boulanger on American composition during extended trips to the United States during the 1930s and ‘40s (in Crosscurrents: American and European Music in Interaction, 1900–2000, 2014). She is currently working on a book on the Broadway musicals and cultural impact of the composer, playwright, actor, director, and producer George M. Cohan (1878–1942). Her writing on Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones can be found on the New York Public Library’s Musical for the Month blog series. Her research has been supported by the Society for American Music (Virgil Thomson Fellowship), Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (Research Fellowship from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin), and Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. Her dissertation “Becoming American Onstage: Broadway Narratives of Immigrant Experiences in the United States” received recognition from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

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