Alexander Rehding
Chair of the Music Department
Research Interests
As a music theorist, Rehding is interested in the question of how music has been understood at different times in history. This has taken his work in a number of different directions -- from Ancient Greek music to the Eurovision Song Contest. Much of his work has been dedicated to music and ecocriticism. (He believes he may have inadvertently coined the term "Ecomusicology" in a 2001 article.) He is currently interested in issues of slowness – specifically music that spans vast amounts of time, thousands or even billions of years, and its function in raising critical awareness. He is the recipient of the 2014 Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association (UK).
Recent Publications
Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 (Oxford 2017)
Alien Listening, the Voyager Golden Record, and Music from Earth (Zone 2021)
Affiliations
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
- Center for European Studies
Faculty Department
Department of Music