About Us

MUSA (Music of the United States of America)

Andrew Kuster, Executive Editor
Siovahn Walker (Executive Director of the American Musicological Society), Financial Officer
Amy Beal (University of California-Santa Cruz), co-Editor-in-Chief
Mark Clague (University of Michigan), co-Editor-in-Chief

Marissa Honig (University of Michigan), Editorial Assistant
Leonard Bopp (University of Michigan), Editorial Assistant

American Musicological Society: Committee on the Publication of American Music (COPAM)

Dale Chapman (Bates College), Chair

Amy Beal (University of California-Santa Cruz), MUSA co-Editor-in-Chief
Melvin Butler (University of Miami)
Mark Clague (University of Michigan), MUSA co-Editor-in-Chief
Sarah Gerk (Binghamton University)
Maya Gibson (University of Missouri)
Sandra Graham (Babson College)
John Graziano (City University of New York, A-R Editions)
Andrew Kuster (University of Michigan), MUSA Executive Editor
Kristen Turner (North Carolina State University), SAM representative
Stephanie Vander Wel (State University of New York at Buffalo)
Pamela Whitcomb (A-R Editions)

Previous Members of COPAM

Thomas Bauman (Northwestern University), David Brackett (McGill University), Johann Buis (Wheaton College), Marva Griffin Carter (Georgia State University), Dale Cockrell (Vanderbilt University), Paul Corneilson (C.P.E. Bach Edition), Rich Crawford (University of Michigan, emeritus), James Deaville (Carleton University), Dexter Edge (MUSA), Maria Cristina Fava (Western Michigan University), Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. (Center for Black Music Research, deceased), Phil Ford (University of Indiana), Lawrence Gushee (University of Illinois), James Haar (University of North Carolina, emeritus), Charles Hamm (Dartmouth University, deceased), H. Wiley Hitchcock (Brooklyn College CUNY, deceased), Cynthia Adams Hoover (Smithsonian Institution), Tammy L. Kernodle (Miami University, Ohio), Beth Levy (University of California at Davis), Christopher Lynch (Duquesne University), Judith McCulloh (University of Illinois Press, deceased), Anne Dhu McLucas (University of Oregon, deceased), Gayle Magee (University of Illinois), Jeffrey Magee (University of Illinois), Leta Miller (University of California-Santa Cruz), Ingrid T. Monson (Harvard University), Bruno Nettl (University of Illinois), David Nicholls (University of Southampton), Michael Ochs (freelance editorial consultant, deceased), Carol Oja (Harvard University), Marcello Piras (MUSA), Michael Pisani (Vassar College, deceased), Nathan Platte (University of Iowa), Paul Ranzini (A-R Editions, American Institute of Musicology), Christopher Reynolds (University of California, Davis), Wayne Schneider (University of Vermont), Wayne D. Shirley (Library of Congress, retired), Sarah Suhadolnik (University of Iowa), Patrick Warfield (University of Maryland), Ron Wiecki (A-R Edtions), James Wierzbicki (University of Sydney)

MUSA Volume Editors (Published)

Paul Austerlitz (Gettysburg College), Marianne Betz (Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Leipzig), Adrienne Fried Block (independent scholar, deceased), Rae Linda Brown (University of California, Irvine), Tara Browner (University of California, Los Angeles), Michael Broyles (Pennsylvania State University), Theodore E. Buehrer (Kenyon College), Dale Cockrell (Vanderbilt University), Carson Cohen (independent scholar), Norm Cohen (University of Portland), Nym Cooke (College of Holy Cross), Anthony M. Cummings (Lafayette College), Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett (Aaron Copland Fund for Music), Jon W. Finson (University of North Carolina), Charles Fussell (Boston College), Charles Hamm (Dartmouth University, deceased), H. Wiley Hitchcock (Brooklyn College CUNY, deceased), John Holzaepfel (Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin), John J. Joyce, Jr. (Tulane University), Richard Kassel (independent scholar and composer), Nola Reed Knouse (Moravian Music Foundation), Karl Kroeger (University of Colorado, emeritus), Jere Laukkanen (Helsinki Metropolia University), Victoria Lindsay Levine (Colorado College), Paul S. Machlin (Colby College), Anne Dhu McLucas (University of Oregon, deceased), Leta Miller (University of California, Santa Cruz), Michael Ochs (freelance editorial consultant, deceased), N. Lee Orr (Georgia State University), Katherine K. Preston (College of William and Mary), Bruce Boyd Raeburn (Tulane University), Thomas L. Riis (University of Colorado), Lawrence Schenbeck, (Spelman College), Lyn Schenbeck (independent scholar), Wayne Schneider (University of Vermont), Aaron Sherber (Martha Graham Dance Company), Wayne D. Shirley (Library of Congress, retired), Joanne Swenson-Eldridge (St. Mary’s College, South Bend, Indiana), Jeffrey Taylor (Brooklyn College CUNY), Judith Tick (Northeastern University), Denise Von Glahn (Florida State University), Patrick Warfield (University of Maryland)

MUSA Volume Editors (Forthcoming)

Gillian Anderson (conductor and independent scholar), Jon Alan Conrad (University of Delaware), Sandra Jean Graham (Babson College), John Koegel (California State University, Fullerton), R. Allen Lott (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary), Peter Muir (independent scholar), Renee Lapp Norris (Lebanon Valley College), Laura Moore Pruett (Merrimack College), Amy Ku’uleialoha Stillman (University of Michigan)

Previous Editorial Assistants for MUSA

Cole Abod, Ethan Allred, Tamar Barzel, Amy Beal, John Behling, Alfredo Cabrera, Suzanne Camino, Gil Scott Chapman, Nathinee Chucherdwatanasak, Mishona Collier, Anne Crawford, Amanda Eubanks-Winkler, Conor Flynn, Timothy Freeze, Jessica Getman, Clay Gonzalez, Karl Hereim, Stephanie Heriger, Jesse Johnston, Lisa Keeney, Russell Klenetsky, Andrew Kohler, Joshua Luty, Michael Mauskapf, Stephen Mitton, Hyo Jin Jenna Moon, Andrew Nardone, Julie Anne Nord (née Heikel), Nathan Platte, Steven Reale, Neil Robertson, Colin Roust, Christopher Scheer, Rebecca Schwartz-Bishir, Sarah Suhadolnik, Victoria Von Arx-Zak, Evan Ware, Leah Weinberg, Trevor Young

Previous Executive Editors of MUSA

Wayne Schneider (1988-1993), Jeffrey Magee (1993-1997), Mark Clague (1997-2003), Marcello Piras (interim 2001-2002), James Wierzbicki (2003-2009), Dorothea Gail (2009-2012), Dexter Edge (2013-2014), Andrew Kuster (2015-present)

The History of MUSA

MUSA's roots can be traced back to the early 1980s when, prompted by several AMS members, President Howard Smither established the Committee on the Publication of American Music (COPAM). Lawrence Gushee served as chair, with Cynthia Adams Hoover, H. Wiley Hitchcock, James Haar, and Richard Crawford as members. In the mid-1980s, COPAM recommended that the AMS sponsor a national series of critical editions, aiming to secure funding through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). AMS president Lewis Lockwood invited the Sonneck Society for American Music (now the Society for American Music, SAM) to appoint a representative to COPAM.

In September 1987, the NEH sponsored a conference at Squam Lake, New Hampshire, where COPAM and over twenty interested parties convened to refine the plan for MUSA. At Squam Lake, COPAM outlined MUSA's vision of forty volumes, with specific criteria for content: (1) that the series as a whole reflect breadth and balance among eras, genres, composers, and performance media; (2) that it avoid duplication of music already available through other channels, reproducing only where new editions are deemed essential; and (3) that works in the series be representative, reflecting particular excellence or notable achievements in the diverse history of American music.

In July 1988, thanks to a three-year NEH grant, COPAM established MUSA headquarters at Brown University's music department in Providence, Rhode Island. COPAM appointed the first Executive Editor of MUSA and initiated activities such as soliciting edition proposals, commissioning editions, and setting up editorial procedures with MUSA's publisher, A-R Editions of Madison, Wisconsin. The inaugural MUSA volume was published in 1993. Since then, MUSA headquarters has been based at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre and Dance in Ann Arbor. The NEH has consistently renewed grants to fund MUSA every three years up to the present day. As of 2023, thirty-two volumes of the projected forty-volume MUSA series have been published.