Freeman, Robert (Schofield)
Freeman, Robert (Schofield)
Freeman, Robert (Schofield), American musicologist, pianist, and educator; b. Rochester, N.Y., Aug. 26, 1935. He received training in piano from Gregory Tucker, Artur Balsam, and Rudolf Serkin, and pursued his academic studies at Harvard Coll. (A.B., summa cum laude, 1957) and at Princeton Univ. (M.F.A., 1960; Ph.D., 1967, with the diss. Opera without Drama: Currents of Change in Italian Opera, 1675–1725’, publ. in Ann Arbor, 1981). Freeman also studied at the Univ. of Vienna on a Fulbright fellowship (1960–62). He taught at Princeton Univ. (1963–68) and at the Mass. Inst. of Technology (1968–73), and also was a visiting assoc. prof, at Harvard Univ. (1972). In 1972 he became director and prof. of musicology at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where he revitalized its administration and oversaw an extensive renovation of its facilities. From 1996 to 1999 he was president of the New England Cons, of Music in Boston. In 1999 he became dean of the Coll. of Fine Arts at the Univ. of Tex. at Austin. As a musicologist and educator, Freeman has contributed many articles to journals, as well as to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire