Kathryn Libin

Professor of Music on the Mary Conover Mellon Chair
Portrait of Kathryn Libin

Kathryn L. Libin specializes in music of the long eighteenth century, particularly Mozart and his contemporaries, music in the lives of Jane Austen and her circle, and the history and performance practice of early keyboard instruments. From 2013–19 she led a research team that catalogued the historically significant music collection of the Lobkowicz Library at Nelahozeves castle, near Prague; containing over 5,000 pieces of music from the 17th through 19th centuries, the collection is particularly rich in performing manuscripts of opera, oratorio, and orchestral music. She co-curated the new permanent music galleries, titled Portrait in Music, at the Lobkowicz Palace museum in Prague, and has authored two volumes—Highlights (2019) and Beethoven (2020)—in The Lobkowicz Collections Music Series (Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers). She is currently working on a third volume, Mozart, which will appear in 2024, as well as a book about the 7th Prince Lobkowitz, Franz Joseph Maximilian, one of the foremost musical patrons in Vienna and Bohemia during the period of Haydn and Beethoven.

BM, Oberlin College; MA, PhD, New York University
At Vassar since 1992

Contact

845-437-7330
Skinner Hall
Box 232

Research and Academic Interests

Music History

Courses

GERM/MUSI 232 Faust, Music, and Romanticism
MUSI 105 Music Theory I
MUSI 246 Music and Ideas I—Medieval and Renaissance Music in Global Context
MUSI 256 Vassar Music Treasures

In the Media

Photos

Download images for non-commercial use, photo credit required.