Associate Professor and Chair, Musicology
Deborah Schwartz-Kates is associate professor and chair of the Department of Musicology at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. Her research focuses on contemporary Latin American music, ethnomusicology, national identity, and film music. Professor Schwartz-Kates has recently been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. Professor Schwartz-Kates is under contract for two books—Revealing Screens: The Film Music of Alberto Ginastera (Oxford University Press) and Alberto Ginastera: A Guide to Research (Routledge Press). She authored the article on Alberto Ginastera for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and contributed the chapter on Argentina for a textbook on Latin American music published by W. W. Norton. Her work has appeared in the Musical Quarterly, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Latin American Music Review and ECHO: A Music-Centered Journal.
Assistant Professor, Musicology
Willa Collins is an assistant professor of Musicology at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. She holds a BM degree from Prairie View A&M University, a MM degree from Rice University, and a PhD from Cornell University. Her primary research area is nineteenth-century French ballet and her doctoral dissertation, Adolphe Adam’s Ballet Le Corsaire at the Paris Opéra, 1856-1868: A Source Study, examines the composer’s last ballet during its run at Paris’ foremost theater through surviving archival documents. She has presented her work at both national and international conferences. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the American Musicological Society’s M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet Fund for Research in France. Outside of nineteenth-century France, she works on popular music, particularly the history of rhythm and blues, and the genre of funk, and their influence on hip-hop.
Research Professor, Musicology
Frank Cooper is a research professor of musicology in the Department of Musicology at the University of Miami Frost School of Music where he lectures and teaches harpsichord. Truly a Renaissance scholar, he has devoted his life to studying the arts while simultaneously pursuing careers as a teacher, writer, lecturer and performer. An expert on keyboard performance practices, he recently performed the Bach Double Keyboard Concerto with Dean Shelton Berg and a chamber orchestra at St. Martha’s Church in Miami. A highlight of his career was receiving the Liszt Centennial Medal from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture along with Vladimir Horowitz and Leonard Bernstein during the same ceremony. Reviews of his research have been published simultaneously in the New York Times, Washington Post and Time magazine. Frank Cooper has been the subject of international radio broadcasts, is widely commissioned to write program notes and record annotations, and has served as artistic director for 35 years of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival. In 2007 Cooper was presented by the National Federation of Music Clubs with its centennial citation for his “indelible and remarkable impact on the artistic life and culture of the United States and the world at large;” moreover, the Miami Herald has referred to him as “South Florida’s cultural maven.” Prof. Cooper was formerly a member of the faculties of Butler University in Indianapolis and the New World School of the Arts in Miami. As part of the Frost School’s community outreach commitment, Frank Cooper also offers a non-credit music history lecture series.
Assistant Professor, Musicology
Melissa de Graaf is an assistant professor of Musicology at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She holds a B.A. degree in Music and English from the University of California, Davis, an M.A. degree in Music and Women’s Studies from Brandeis University, and a Ph.D. degree from Brandeis University. She is the recipient of a number of awards and grants, including the American Association of University Women American Fellowship. She is currently writing a book about music in the New Deal and the New York Composers’ Forum concerts, 1935–1940, which will be published by Oxford University Press. Melissa de Graaf’s essays on Aaron Copland and Ruth Crawford were recently published in collections edited by Judith Tick, Carol Oja, Ellie Hisama, and Ray Allen.
Music Librarian, Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library
Nancy C. Zavac is the music librarian at the Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library, University of Miami Libraries. She teaches Music Bibliography and regularly serves on theses committees for graduate students. She is an active member of the Music Library Association, Southeast Chapter of the Music Library Association, and the Music OCLC Users Group. As a member of the MLA Education Committee she has planned several “Continuing Education Forums” for national meetings. Nancy Zavac has a Master’s of Music degree in Musicology from the University of Miami (May 1979) and a Master’s of Science degree in Library Science from Florida State University (December 1980). From 1979 to 1982 she worked as Music Cataloger at the U. of Miami Music Library and as Music Librarian from June 1982 to the present. As Music Librarian, Ms. Zavac is responsible for selecting music materials and electronic resources, providing reference assistance and bibliographic instruction, overseeing cataloging, and supervising staff and performing administrative duties.
