Dr. Eric Smigel

Professor, Music History and Musicology
School of Music and Dance
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
SDSU
Primary Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax
Primary Phone: 619-594-6031
Building/Location
Music - 235
Bio
Eric Smigel is Professor of Music and Coordinator of the Music History and Musicology Program at San Diego State University. He received the M.A. degree in music history and Ph.D. in historical musicology from the University of Southern California, where he was twice recognized as the Outstanding Graduate in the Department of Music History and Literature. While in Los Angeles, he taught music history at USC, served as a research assistant at the Getty Research Institute, provided pre-concert lectures for the Da Camera Society, worked as an educator for the International House of Blues Foundation, and was a docent at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Before joining the faculty at SDSU, he served as Assistant Professor of Music at Utah State University, where he taught music history, music theory, and an interdisciplinary arts course. At SDSU Prof. Smigel teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in music history, music research, and musicology, as well as a general education course in Psychedelic Rock of the 1960s. In the community, he has delivered pre-concert lectures for the La Jolla Music Society and the San Diego Symphony, and he has contributed to outreach projects with the San Diego Public Library and the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art.
Prof. Smigel is a member of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, the Society for Minimalist Music, and theCollege Music Society, and has presented scholarly papers at regional, national, and international conferences. His primary research interest focuses on historical, cultural, and phenomenological aspects of American experimental music, and he has published articles and reviews in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, American Music, Perspectives of New Music, Journal of the Society for American Music, Tempo, MusikTexte, Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music, Interdisciplinary Humanities, General Music Today, and The World From Here: Treasures of the Great Libraries of Los Angeles. He is a contributing author to The Grove Dictionary of American Music and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and he has written original liner notes for several premiere recordings of new music that were released by New World Records and Hat Art Records. Prof. Smigel wrote a book chapter examining the visionary soundtracks of filmmaker Stan Brakhage, which appears in The Music and Sound of Experimental Film (Oxford University Press), and he is currently under contract with the University of Illinois Press to write the first historical biography of American composer James Tenney, which will highlight the composer’s relationship with visual artist Carolee Schneemann.
Education
- Ph.D University of Southern California
- MA University of Southern California
- BM San Diego State University
