Paul Berry
The foundation of academic teaching among aspiring professional musicians is a shared love for the experience of listening and a common commitment to the craft of music-making. Every course I teach aims to help students find ways to place the notes they hear, play, sing, or write into contexts in which those notes become meaningful, relevant, revelatory—in which music becomes both the topic of discussion and the means by which all of us can learn from one another.
Paul Berry
Historian Dr. Paul Berry received his BA in humanities and music from Yale College (2000) and his PhD in musicology from the Yale Department of Music (2007). His scholarly work focuses on compositional process and interpersonal communication in the chamber music and songs of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and other composers and performers of the nineteenth century. His first book, Brahms Among Friends: Listening, Performance, and the Rhetoric of Allusion, was published in 2014 by Oxford University Press; essays and reviews have appeared in books and scholarly journals in the United States and the United Kingdom. As a tenor, Berry specializes in early music, German lieder, and recent compositions; recital collaborators have included fortepianist Christoph Hammer and pianists Boris Berman and Charles Rosen. From 2007 until 2010, he served on the faculty of the University of North Texas College of Music.
At the Yale School of Music, Berry serves as Deputy Dean and teaches a wide array of courses, including “Poetry and Meaning in Vocal Music,” “Text, Form, and Narrative in Instrumental Music,” and a historical survey of common-practice repertoire. He lectures frequently at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, as well as at other festivals and concert series.
