Associate Professor
Coordinator of History and Literature
Ph.D., Indiana University
Office: 815-753-1842
E-mail: bjhart@niu.edu
Brian Hart has taught music history at Northern Illinois University since 1996. He teaches all periods of Western music history, including undergraduate surveys in Classic, Romantic, and 20th -century music; graduate courses in music of the 19th and 20th centuries (the latter split into two semesters: 1900-45 and 1945-today); American music; and opera history. His research concentrates on French music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Professor Hart has written articles and papers on various aspects of the late romantic French symphony, including its place in Parisian concert life, governmental support for the symphony, and the use of the symphony to communicate socio-political philosophies. He has also written on critical responses to the music of Debussy, the influence of Vincent d'Indy on French symphonic development, the French organ symphony, and the symphonies of Arthur Honegger. He was the program annotator for the 2001 Bard Music Festival, Debussy and His World, held at Bard College and Lincoln Center. He has recently completed an extensive historical and analytical study of the symphony in France from ca. 1850 to 1920.