The Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music at the University of Miami announces the selection of Dr. David Ake as professor of musicology, and chair of the Department of Musicology beginning August 15, 2015.
He joins a distinguished musicology faculty that includes Dr. Deborah Schwartz-Kates who previously served as department chair for eight years and is a two-time National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship recipient and an expert in contemporary Latin American music; Dr. Karen Henson, whose research focuses on 19th-century opera, singers and opera performance; and Aleysia K, Witmore, a visiting professor of ethnomusicology.
David Ake is an award-winning scholar and educator in the fields of jazz and popular music. His publications include the books Jazz Cultures; Jazz Matters:Sound, Place, and Time since Bebop; and the collection Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries (co-edited with Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Daniel Goldmark), all for the University of California Press, as well as chapters or articles in the Cambridge Companion to Jazz, American Music, Jazz Perspectives, and other publications. Also active as a jazz pianist and composer, his most recent recordings as a leader are Bridges, which appeared on multiple Best-of-2013 lists, and Lake Effect (2015), both for the Posi-Tone label. Prior to joining the Frost School, Ake chaired the Department of Music at Case Western Reserve University, and was a longtime faculty member at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he served as Director of the School of the Arts, among other leadership positions. Ake’s honors include the Nevada Regents’ Teaching Award, the F. Donald Tibbitts Teaching Award, and the Society for American Music’s Housewright Dissertation Award. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), along with degrees in jazz performance from the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Miami Frost School of Music.
Dr. Ake was selected from a pool of top musicology candidates who are renowned in the profession as outstanding researchers and pedagogues.
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About the Frost School of Music
The Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music is one of the largest and best music schools located in a private university in the U.S., and one of the most comprehensive and relevant in all of higher education. With over 700 students and 100 faculty members it a top choice for instrumental, keyboard and vocal performance as well as composition, music business, music education, music engineering technology, music therapy, songwriting, jazz, studio music, and more. It is one of two schools created in 1926 when the University of Miami was founded. The naming gift from Dr. Phillip and Patricia Frost in 2003 was a historic occasion.
The mission of the Frost School of Music is to foster musical leadership by providing an innovative, relevant, and inspiring education; advance performance, creativity and scholarship; and enrich the world community with meaningful outreach and brilliant cultural offerings.
The Frost School has pioneered new curricula and was the first in the nation to offer professionally accredited Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Business and Music Engineering Technology, and was among the first to offer degrees in Music Therapy, as well as Studio Music and Jazz. Renowned for its Instrumental Performance programs, it is the home of the Frost Symphony Orchestra, Frost Wind Ensemble and Frost Concert Jazz Band and is a leader in vocal training with the Frost Opera Theater, Frost Chorale and other notable choirs.
Frost is the exclusive home of the Frost Experiential Music Curriculum which fully integrates performance, music history, ear training, and composition through chamber music and skills ensembles; the Henry Mancini Institute which provides Frost students with cross-genre performance opportunities in real-world professional settings; the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation’s Ensemble Scholars program which provides free tuition, room and board to 19 academically strong and highly talented undergraduate music students; and the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program which develops the creative skills of talented young artist/songwriters by immersing them in the diverse traditions of American songwriting.
