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National Endowment for the Arts Announces New Director of Research and AnalysisJuly 26, 2005
The National Endowment for the Arts announced today it is appointing Harvard University professor Karen Painter as the agency's Director of Research and Analysis. In this position, Painter is responsible for identifying program-related issues of interest to the NEA and for developing research and analysis to address those issues. She will assume her new responsibilities on September 6, 2005. Karen Painter, 40, is Associate Professor at Harvard's Department of Music where she teaches undergraduate courses in the history of Western music and seminars in aesthetics and 19th century composers, among other topics.
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia said, "Karen Painter is a brilliant musicologist with a wealth of experiences in the national and international music world. Passionate about music and its power to connect individuals, she understands how to put research into action. She brings a wealth of learning and experience to the Arts Endowment." Painter has also been active developing conferences and symposia for musical institutions. These include "Beethoven and Wagner" (February 2006) and "New Perspectives on Wagner's Flying Dutchman" (March 2005) both co-sponsored by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Harvard Music Department and Center for European Studies. She has also worked with the Ojai Music Festival in California and the Mozarteum conservatory in Salzburg, Austria. Her publication projects include editor-in-chief of the journal Current Musicology from 1995-96, editor of Mahler and His World (Princeton University Press, 2002), co-editor of Late Thoughts: Reflections on Artists and Composers at Work (Getty Research Institute, due spring 2006), and program notes author for Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. She received her undergraduate degree in music and philosophy from Yale University in 1987 and doctorate in music from Columbia University in 1996. From 1995-97, she was an assistant professor of music at Dartmouth College before joining Harvard in 1997. She currently lives with her husband Richard and their two children, Elizabeth and William in Boston, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Harvard University.
National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency |
Painter's research has focused recently on the history of music listening, a new area of research. Her work examines public reactions to Austrian and German composers through major performances of their work. An upcoming book examines Mozart's music and its role in music education from the Enlightenment through to the more recent Mozart Effect. In 1999 and 2001, Painter received an Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung research fellowship awarded by the German government. In spring 2000, she received the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin.