Howard Pollack
John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Music

e-mail: hpollack@uh.edu
office: MSM 223
office phone: (713)743-3165
address: 120 School of Music Bldg, Houston, TX 77204-4017

Howard Pollack holds a bachelor's degree in piano and music history from the University of Michigan and a master's degree and doctorate in musicology from Cornell University. He has taught at the University of Houston since 1987.

Especially interested in the interaction of popular, jazz, and classical idioms in twentieth-century music, Pollack has published widely in the field of American music, including five books: Walter Piston (1982); Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and his Students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski (1992); John Alden Carpenter: A Chicago Composer (1995); Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (1999); and most recently, George Gershwin: His Life and Work (2006).  He also co-edited German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Fusion (1890-1989) (1992).  He is currently at work on a critical biography of Marc Blitzstein.

Described by the New York Times as "the definitive study of Aaron Copland's life and work, no doubt for a long time to come," Copland received the Irving Lowens Award from the Society for American Music and a Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP.  George Gershwin, which received an Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, has been called "endlessly fascinating" (New York Times) and "a gripping read" (Charleston News and Courier), with "some of the best musical analysis you're likely to find anywhere" (Toronto Globe and Mail). Pollack's other awards include subvention grants from the Society for American Music and the American Musicological Society, a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Research Excellence Award from the University of Houston, and a Newberry Library Fellowship.

Pollack's articles and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and encyclopedias, and he has lectured at colleges and arts organizations in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Mexico, and across the United States.

At the University of Houston, Pollack regularly teaches Music History III (1870-present) and the Doctoral Research Seminar, as well as electives in 20th-century music, keyboard literature, film music, and musical theater.