James Hepokoski designated the Moses Professor of Music

James Hepokoski, newly designated as the Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Music, is a specialist in symphonic and chamber music from the 18th to the 20th centuries, with particular expertise in musical style and its political and cultural implications. His appointment will be effective July 1.

Central to Hepokoski’s work is a broad, overarching view of the past and current state of the discipline. Both in his writings and in his courses, he explores ways of synthesizing music history, analysis, and criticism (music as cultural discourse). He is the author or co-author of seven books and dozens of essays on a wide variety of topics. These include studies of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Sibelius, and Debussy, as well as an award-winning book on musical form in the Classical era, “Elements of Sonata Theory.”

Currently chair of the Department of Music, Hepokoski teaches a wide range of music courses, among which are surveys of music history, as well as graduate and undergraduate seminars on such topics as Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, European nationalism, American music, 1920s Blues, and Cole Porter.

Hepokoski received his M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University. He has taught at the Oberlin College Conservatory, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and, since 1999, the Yale Department of Music. He was the co-editor of the musicological journal 19th-Century Music from 1992 to 2005. In 2010, Yale awarded him the Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities.