Ellwood Derr

Professor Emeritus of Music Theory
ellwoodz@umich.edu

Education:
B.Mus., Eastman School of Music
M.Mus., A.Mus.D., Univ. of Illinois

His articles and essays, many of which deal with the compositional process and the manipulation of pre-existing materials in 18th- and 19th-century music, appear regularly in leading European and American journals. He has contributed to The New Grove. He is a frequent lecturer at major European congresses and at universities throughout the United States and Canada.

In 1983, he was "distinguished university lecturer" at the University of Manitoba. After discovering Debussy's Piano Trio in G (1880), Mr. Derr published the work in critical urtext with the G. Henle Verlag. His critical edition of the Second Volume (1733) of Handel's harpsichord pieces was published by Henle in 1998. His other editions of music have been issued by UMI Research Press, Breitkopf & Härtel, and Dover Publications. His song-cycle, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, is now available in two different recordings on the Centaur label. After its New York premiere in 1996, the cycle Six Songs of Sundry Sorts for soprano, obligato saxophone, and piano has received numerous performances in both the United States and Canada. New choral works also have recently been premiered. His essay on artistic interconnections among the works of Johann Christian Bach and Mozart appeared in the Mozart-Jahrbuch in 1997. Other Mozart essays have appeared in Mozart's Piano Concertos, an anthology published in 1996 by The University of Michigan Press.

Professor Derr studied composition with Carl Orff at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik.

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