Gayle Magee

Faculty

Professor of Musicology
Faculty Affairs Coordinator

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About Gayle Magee

Bio

Gayle Magee’s scholarship and teaching focus on American music since the late nineteenth century, as well as issues of gender in music history and pedagogy. Magee is the author and co-editor of four books:

Over Here, Over There: Transatlantic Conversations on the Music of World War I (University of Illinois Press, 2019): Co-edited collection with WIlliam Brooks and Christina Bashford
Robert Altman’s Soundtracks: Film, Music, and Sound from M*A*S*H to A Prairie Home Companion (Oxford University Press, Music/Media Series, 2014)
Charles Ives Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, Music in American Life Series, 2008)
Charles Ives: A Research and Information Guide, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2010).

Currently, she is completing a book on composer William Bolcom, to be published by the University of Illinois Press in the series American Composers, and a book on Charles Ives for Oxford University Press’s Master Musicians series. Additionally, she has published several articles and book chapters, including “‘She’s a Dear Old Lady’: English-Canadian Popular Songs from World War I” (American Music, 2016), which received the Irving Lowens Article Award for 2016 from the Society for American Music. Other publications include (select list since 2008):

“‘Every Man in New York’: Charles Ives and the First World War.” Chap. in Over Here, Over There, co-edited collection. University of Illinois Press, forthcoming 2019.
“Revisiting Gosford Park: Downtown Abbey, American Audiences, and the British Heritage Genre.” Chap. in Exploring Downton Abbey: Critical Essays on the Television Series, edited by Scott Stoddart (McFarland, 2018)
Austen, Music, and Masculinity in the British Heritage Film.” Chap. in Jane Austen and Masculinity, edited by Michael Kramp (Bucknell University Press, 2018)
Compromises and Creativity: Altman, Copyright, and the Musical Soundtrack.” Chap. in The Robert Altman Companion, ed. Adrian Danks (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
“Songwriting, Advertising, and Mythmaking in the New Hollywood: The Case of Nashville (1975)” (Music and the Moving Image, 2012)
“Rethinking Social Class and American Music” (Journal of the American Musicological Society, 2011)
“Marketing the Voice: Opera, Film, and the Case of Robert Altman” (Theatre Survey, 2010)
“Robert Altman and the New Hollywood Musical.” Chap. in The Sound of Musicals, edited by Steven Cohan (BFI, 2010)
“Song, Genre, and Transatlantic Dialogue in Gosford Park” (Journal of the Society for American Music, 2008)

Awards, honors, and leadership roles include (select list):

National Arts Associate Distinguished Member, Sigma Alpha Iota
Charles Ives Society Board of Directors (1999-), President (2010-16), and Chair of the Board (2017-)
NEH Summer Stipend for Robert Altman’s Soundtracks (2012)
AMS Publication Subvention Award for Charles Ives Reconsidered (2007)
NEH Summer Stipend for Charles Ives Reconsidered (2000)
Sinfonia Foundation Grant for Charles Ives Reconsidered

Currently, Magee serves as editor of the quarterly, peer-reviewed journal American Music. From 2014-17, Magee served with Mark Clague as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the publication series Music in the United States of America (MUSA), which is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Michigan, and the American Musicological Society.