Music History & Literature

Faculty Profiles

Undergraduate Program

Student Handbook

Graduate Program

Graduate Handbook

Thoughts on SOM

Curriculum Vitae

Sterling E. Murray
Chairperson of the Department of Music History
Professor of Music History

Room 233, Swope Music Building
Phone: 610 436-2284
smurray@wcupa.edu

Thoughts on SOM
It has been my special priviledge to work with the students of West Chester University's School of Music over the last thirty-three years. I am continually impressed with the professional motivation and serious commitment of these young people, many of whom have gone on to enjoy outstanding careers in music performance, scholarship, composition, and education. I am very proud of their accomplishments. The potential for excellence among the School of Music students and faculty is truly exceptional.

Curriculum Vitae

Education
B. Mus. (Performance: Clarinet), University of Maryland at College Park; M.A., Ph. D. (Musicology), University of Michigan

Sterling Murray studied clarinet with Ignatius Genusa and Norman Heim, musicology with Richard Crawford, Glenn Watkins, Homer Ulrich, and Louise Cuyler, and theory with Lester Trimble and Wallace Berry.  He has lectured and published widely on various aspects of music in the eighteenth century.  Professor Murray is a contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and his articles and reviews have appeared in The Musical Quarterly, The Journal of the American Musicological Society, The Journal of Musicology, Music and Letters, Eighteenth-Century Music, Das Mozart Jahrbuch, Hudebni veda, Musik in Bayern, and the American Choral Review among others.  He has published several editions of eighteenth-century instrumental music for A-R Editions and Garland Press, and a volume of Haydn’s Symphonies (Hob. I: 76-81)  in collaboration with Sonja Gerlach for the Joseph Haydn Werke (Haydn Institut, Cologne, Germany).  Professor Murray is the author of Anthologies of Music:  An Annotated Index and The Music of Antonio Rosetti (Anton Rösler), ca. 1750-1792:  A Thematic Catalog, both published by Harmonie Park Press.  His research interests includes American music and his study "Music and Dance at Philadelphia's City Tavern, 1770-1790" was published in American Musical Life in Context and Practice to 1865, edited by James R. Heintze as the first volume in the series Essays in American Music.  In the summer of 2006 Professor Murray was a Fellow of the John D. Rockefeller Library of Colonial Williasmburg. 

Professor Murray is the founding President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Music and an honorary life-time member of the Rosetti Gesellschaft.  He currently is at work on a monograph detailing the life and music of the eighteenth-century Bohemian composer Anton Rösler (better known as Antonio Rosetti).  An acknowledged authority on the music of Rosetti, his editions of Rosetti’s concertos and symphonies (identified by Murray Index numbers) have been performed and recorded by orchestras in Germany, Austria, France, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom.  The Internationale Rosetti Gesellschaft, under the patronage of Prince Moritz zu Oettingen-Wallerstein, has honored him as a life-time member.

Dr. Murray is a recipient of the West Chester University Faculty Merit Award and the Council of Trustees Achievement Award.  In 1992-93,  Professor Murray served as Interim Dean of the School of Music, and he currently is the Chair of the Department of Music History.  In addition to campus courses, he has also taught in Salzburg, Austria and Oxford, England and in the spring of 2002 he was guest lecturer at the University of Southampton in England.  He is the past director of the Institute for British Cultural Studies, a summer study program in Oxford.  Several of his previous students are teaching at colleges and universities in this country and abroad.  Professor Murray is listed in the International Who's Who in Music, Who's Who in American Music, and Outstanding Educators in the United States.

top of page