During this 250th anniversary year of the United States, Field Notes will showcase articles, interviews, and other media that engage with the breadth and diversity of music in the US. From the music of John Williams to Bad Bunny, Billie Holiday to Hamilton, contributors in these pieces interrogate the scope and complexity of American musical practices. Stay tuned for perspective on the past, present, and future of music in the US as the semiquincentennial unfolds.
In the following interviews, Renee Lapp Norris and Jon Alan Conrad discuss their recently published critical editions in the Music of the United States of America (MUSA) series. Additional information about the editions can be accessed on the website of A-R Editions:
Opera Parody Songs of Blackface Minstrelsy (1844–1860), edited by Renee Lapp Norris
Stephen Sondheim: Follies, Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, edited by Jon Alan Conrad
Renee Lapp Norris is Professor of Music at Lebanon Valley College. Her research focuses on American blackface minstrelsy, specifically parodies of opera performed by minstrel troupes between 1840 and 1860. For fiver years, she was music department chair at LVC and from 2021–22 served as Associate Provost of Graduate and Professional Studies.
Jon Alan Conrad is an Associate Professor Emeritus of the University of Delaware School of Music, with a PhD from Indiana University. He was a contributing editor of Opus magazine and has written for such publications as Opera News and The New York Times. He is a contributor to the Grove dictionaries and The Metropolitan Opera Guides to opera on audio and video. In addition to this Follies edition, he is coeditor of the forthcoming critical edition of One Touch of Venus for the Kurt Weill Edition.
As Executive Editor of Music of the United States of America (MUSA), Andrew Kuster has brought a dozen scholarly editions to publication (several won the Claude V. Palisca Award). He also teaches graduate seminars on choral music literature and courses on writing and entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan School for Music, Theatre & Dance. Among his scholarly publications are the Kurt Weill Edition of Zaubernacht (coeditor), Heinrich Schütz’s Geistliche Chor-Music, and Amy Beach’s The Sea-Fairies.
