Michael Beckerman, a renowned musicologist recognized for his scholarship on Czech and Eastern European music, has been named the new dean of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, it was announced Monday.
Beckerman is currently the Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music and the Collegiate Professor of Music at New York University, where he chaired the music department for more than a decade. He will begin his new role at UCLA by Oct. 1.
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The appointment marks a return to UC for Beckerman, who was a member of the music faculty at UC Santa Barbara from 1992 to 2003. He was also a distinguished professor at Lancaster University in the UK from 2011 to 2015 and a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis from 1982 to 1992.
"Returning to the University of California after 25 years is really a dream come true," he said in a statement. "And coming to the Herb Alpert School of Music -- one of the great cultural institutions in the country, with its world-class students, faculty and staff -- is an honor I will strive to live up to during my time as dean."
Beckerman, whose work has ties to ethnomusicology, composition and performance, is an award-winning scholar who has written and edited numerous books on Czech music and composers and other topics, including "New Worlds of Dvorák," "Janácek and His World" and "Classical Music: Contemporary Perspectives and Challenges."
Beckerman has performed and lectured throughout the world, and his work and research have encompassed a wide variety of issues in music and musicology, from Mozart, Brahms and the music of the Roma to the experiences of exiled composers, music and disability, and music in World War II concentration camps.
A regular guest on the "Live From Lincoln Center" series on PBS and a two-time recipient of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his writing and commentary on music, Beckerman served as the Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in- Residence at the New York Philharmonic in 2016-17.
Beckerman succeeds Eileen Strempel, who has served as the music school's dean since 2019. Robert Fink, special academic senior associate dean at the school, will serve as interim dean from June until Beckerman arrives this fall.
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