January 1, 2022
Tusa retires from the university after a Remarkable 40-year career at the Butler School
Affectionately known for his bow ties and dry wit, Tusa was hired as a Lecturer in 1981. After finishing his Ph.D. in Musicology at Princeton University, he was promoted to assistant professor in 1984. Tusa became associate professor in 1987, then professor in 1997.
Regarded as one of the premiere Beethoven experts in the musicology field, Tusa’s storied career was highlighted by many scholarly articles and book reviews. In 1991, he wrote an acclaimed monograph, Euryanthe and Carl Maria von Weber’s Dramaturgy of German Opera, published by Clarendon Press. Tusa also wrote a volume in the Ashgate Library of Essays in Opera Studies, National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera II: Central and Eastern Europe.
Tusa’s essays have appeared in many prominent publications including 19th-Century Music, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, The Music Review, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Beethoven Forum, Journal of the American Liszt Society, Journal of Musicology, International Journal of Musicology, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Cambridge Opera Journal and Bonner Beethoven-Studien. He wrote the entry on Weber in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (revised edition) and has contributed essays to the Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, the Cambridge Opera Handbook Ludwig van Beethoven.
“In musicology, it’s impossible not to know who Michael Tusa is,” said Alison Maggart, a Butler School professor of musicology. Having spent years admiring Tusa’s work as a graduate student, Maggart said she felt anxious joining the Butler School’s faculty three years ago and working alongside the legendary professor. But those feelings quickly dissipated, she said, as she discovered Tusa’s calm demeanor, generosity and “encyclopedic knowledge.”
“Even the things most people don’t really want to commit to memory, like any kind of administrative hang-up, or the deepest understanding of the graduate course catalog, he really knows the school inside and out,” she said.
Tusa said his fascination with classical music began in front of the television set as a young child. He regularly tuned in to CBS for the Young People’s Concerts series featuring Leonard Bernstein, an American composer best known for his Broadway musical West Side Story. Inspired by the energy and grace Bernstein infused into his performances, Tusa said he enrolled in piano lessons, pursuing the instrument seriously until completing his master’s in musical performance at Yale University. After that, Tusa dropped musical performance in pursuit of musicology at Princeton, starting what would become over four decades of scholarly work.
His longtime friend and colleague Stephen Slawek, a Butler School professor of ethnomusicology and self-proclaimed “slightly, but not fully reformed hippie,” recalled meeting his clean-cut colleague as a new faculty member in 1983. Tusa’s “monkish” countenance caught Slawek’s eye. “There were always piles of books in his office and piles of papers,” he said.
Piles that grew larger over time. Of his immense scholarship, Tusa said he most enjoyed working on Fidelio, Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, as well as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. But while those might be his favorites, Tusa said he’s proud of his entire body of work. “Each project that I’ve worked on had its own character, and at the time, you know, I felt like I was doing the best that I could,” he said.
But scholarship was only part of Tusa’s legacy. He said he hopes to be remembered as a “dedicated teacher,” and said he’ll miss interacting with students most of all. Tusa twice received teaching awards from the Butler School and was also the recipient of the College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award for 2013-14.
Page Stephens, the Butler School’s assistant director for operations and doctoral candidate in voice performance and pedagogy, took two classes with Tusa. She marveled at his command of 19th-century opera and art song, noting he always brought notes to lectures, but almost never referenced them.
Stephens recalled fondly Tusa’s quick, often witty delivery of course material. “If you blinked, you might miss the best musical witticism you’ve ever heard,” she said. “Sometimes it would take me a few beats to realize how funny an observation was, and I’d be laughing for the next two minutes while Tusa had already moved on to another topic.”
But beyond his vast knowledge and sharp wit, what Stephens said she appreciated most was Tusa’s genuine interest in each and every student who took his classes. She said he was always humble about the limits of his own knowledge, and always encouraged his students to impart their own in class. “He’ll be sorely missed,” Stephens said. “I will likely reference my notes from his classes for the rest of my career.”
Administrative work is an inevitable part of professorship, too, and Tusa said he hopes his colleagues will remember him as a “good citizen,” someone who always answered the call when needed. There is perhaps no better example than his two years as the Butler School’s interim director from 1999-01. Many of the school’s professors who were around at the time recalled the fairness and integrity Tusa demonstrated in that role, including Slawek, who noted that Tusa never used the position to buttress his own musicology department, or anything that benefited himself — ever.
In one instance, Slawek recalled needing a more comfortable office chair due to ruptured disks in his back. He lobbied Tusa for one, who agreed, but then Slawek noticed Tusa’s faculty office chair was also in dire need of a replacement. Slawek suggested Tusa order himself a new chair as well, but Tusa declined. “I said, ‘Come on, this chair is probably 50 years old, it’s falling apart,’” Slawek said he told Tusa. “But that’s just the sort of thing he wouldn’t do.”
Tusa also served on a number of hiring committees throughout his career, including one that brought in Butler School Professor of Ethnomusicology Luisa Nardini. She recalled meeting Tusa for the first time in 2005 as a new applicant. Fresh from the hospital after delivering her baby by C-section, Nardini was at home with a crying newborn waiting for medication from the pharmacy. Then, suddenly, the phone rang; it was Tusa, head of the search committee. Flustered, Nardini handed the baby to her husband and asked him to split so she could talk in peace. She grabbed the phone and apologized profusely for the noise, but Tusa immediately told her not to worry, saying that the crying baby brought back warm memories of when his own son was an infant, and then proceeded to help make arrangements so she could bring her newborn to Austin for the interview.
“Over the years, I found that to be very typical of Michael,” Nardini said. “He’s an extraordinary scholar, an extraordinary administrator and a very committed and well-loved teacher. But above all of that, there is a real ability to relate on a human level.”
Tusa said his first priority in retirement is finding a new home for the 40 years’ worth of accumulated materials in his office. After that, he’d like to read more broadly within the musicology field. Tusa enjoys learning languages, too, namely German, Italian, French and Spanish (in order of competence) and is looking forward to relaxing with Umberto Eco and Thomas Mann novels, read, of course, in their original Italian and German.
And as Tusa rides off into the sunset, he leaves the Butler School better than he found it, with contributions that will be remembered for generations to come.
