Edward M. Anderson, PhD Cantab

I joined the faculty of Rice University in Classical Studies and Italian in 2006. I hold an AB from the University of California at Berkeley in History and French, an MA from Middlebury College in Italian Language and Literature, and a PhD in Italian from the University of Cambridge with a dissertation — "Of Ariosto's legacy in seventeenth-century Italian musical drama" — now under review for publication. I have begun work on a second book concerning classical and vernacular (Italian) literary authority in music in the period 1500-1800. My scholarship focuses therefore on lyric poetry (Petrarch, Metastasio, Da Ponte), Renaissance humanism, and the early modern musical reception of canonical classical and vernacular literature.

My teaching at Rice is focused in the Center for the Study of Languages, the Department of Classical Studies, the Shepherd School of Music, and the Humanities curriculum. Since coming to Rice I have supervised four Dunlevie Summer Writing Fellowships and one FocusEurope project (the latter a study of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata in Seicento musical drama).

    Intermediate Italian Language and Culture (ITAL 201 [D1])
    Special Topics in Italian Language Literature and Music (ITAL 249)
    Advanced Italian Language and Culture (ITAL 320)

    Classical Sources in Opera (CLAS/MUSI 230 [D1])
    Special Topics in Classics and Music — Ariadne in Music (CLAS 407)
    Ovid's Metamorphoses in European Arts and Letters, 1300-1650 (CLAS 491)

    Literature, history, and Philosophy — Renaissance to the Present (HUMA 102 [D1])

Each academic year I organize several performances of Italian music by singers and instrumentalists of the Shepherd School of Music, a number of whom are enrolled in courses offered through the Italian Language & Culture Program. These musical events have been presented in conjunction with Rice's humanities core curriculum (HUMA 102) and the Classical Legacy program. One Fall semester concert is organized around the feast day (November 22nd) of Santa Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and is presented by first and second year students of Italian. In the Fall of 2008, I organized the American premiere of an important work of modern music, the Stabat mater (1999) by Matteo D'Amico of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. The composer traveled to Houston for the performance, as did acclaimed actor Alfonso Veneroso. Mr. Veneroso, a disciple of film and stage director Luca Ronconi, read the narrative part of D'Amico's work.

From 1994-2000 I worked in classical music in the representation of singers, conductors, and stage directors for firms in New York and Paris. From 2000-2004 I was a member of the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School, where I directed the program in Art Song and Vocal Chamber Performance. I have lived in San Francisco, Florence, New York, Paris, Chicago, Cambridge (UK), and Houston. In Houston, I am particularly fond of the lush flora and the bright green geckos. Since coming to Houston I have planted 33 trees, including many myrtles, one of whom is named Astolfo.

~ link to curriculum vitæ

327 Rayzor Hall - MS 34
Rice University
Houston, Texas 77251-1892
Telephone: 713.348.4373
Facsimile: 713.348.5846
Email: edward.m.anderson@rice.edu