Lawrence Kramer

Fordham University

Lawrence Kramer is Distinguished Professor of English and Music at Fordham University, the editor of the journal 19th-Century Music, and a composer whose works have been performed internationally.  He has held nine visiting professorships at universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, and China; his work has been the subject of several symposia and of session meetings at scholarly societies, again both in the U.S. and abroad, and has been translated into seven languages.  His numerous books on music and culture include, most recently, Expression and Truth: On the Music of Knowledge, Interpreting Music, and Why Classical Music Still Matters.  Musical Meaning and Human Values, co-edited with Keith Chapin, is a collection based on an international conference held in Kramer’s honor in 2007.  The conference featured the premiere of nine songs from his cycle The Wanderer and his Shadow to texts adapted from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science.  Recent performances include “A Ring of Light,” “Song Acts,” “That Lonesome Whistle," “The Wild Swans,” “Crossing the Water," “Another Time," and “A Short History of the Twentieth Century."