Professor Nancy Rachel November

Biography

Nancy November is a Professor of Musicology. Combining interdisciplinarity and cultural history, her research centers on chamber music of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, probing questions of historiography, canonization, and genre. Recent publications include Beethoven’s Theatrical Quartets:  Opp. 59, 74, and 95 (Cambridge University Press, 2013); a three-volume set of fifteen string quartets by Emmanuel Aloys Förster (A-R Editions, 2016); and Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven’s Vienna (Boydell Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a Humboldt Fellowship (2010-12); and three Marsden Grants from the New Zealand Royal Society. She is currently editing a book on Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press, 2019), and publishing a broad range of chamber music from the nineteenth century in modern editions. The editions include a new practical edition of Beethoven's middle-period string quartets for Beethoven Werke, and a three-volume set of fifteen string quartets by Beethoven’s contemporary Emmanuel Aloys Förster. 

She also has a significant interest in teaching and learning in higher education, with an emphasis on developing student-centred history pedagogies across the disciplines. She is the recipient of teaching-related research grants from Ako Aotearoa, NZ Fulbright. Her current project, funded by the NZ Teaching and Learning Research Initiative, is entitled: Historical Literacy Aotearoa: Fostering Effective Pedagogies for Māori and Pasifika Students in the Historical Disciplines.

Research | Current

• Cultures of chamber music in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
• Musical arrangement and its roles in sociability and canon formation
• Ideas and ideologies of musical performance
• The production of musical editions, including theories of editing 
• Teaching historical subjects across the disciplines

Teaching | Current

• Music, History and Ideas
• Concepts and Methods in Practical Musical Research

Postgraduate supervision

In progress:

PhD, Benjamin Kubiak, ‘A Historiography of the Rock Musical’

Co-supervising (with Prof. W. Dean Sutcliffe) PhD, Jenny Zilmer, 'Buxtehude's Vocal Music'

PhD, James Tabaka, ‘Beethoven’s Trios in Context’

Co-supervising (with A/Prof. Allan Badley): PhD, Marie-Claire Taylor, ‘The Viennese Requiem, 1740-1825’.

Recently completed:

Co-supervised (with A/Prof. Allan Badley): PhD, Sam Girling, ‘Curiosity or virtuosity?  The emergence and decline of unconventional timpani and percussion repertoire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’.

MMus, Jonathan Dunlop, ‘Performing Schubert’s Piano Sonatas’

Distinctions/Honours

2018-19  Teaching and Learning Research Initiatives Grant, New Zealand 

2016-18  Marsden Grant, New Zealand Royal Society

2010-12  Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

2009 CAI Early Career Teaching Excellence Award, The University of Auckland

Responsibilities

Associate Dean (Postgraduate), Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries

Areas of expertise

Music and aesthetics ca. 1800

Chamber music in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century

Nineteenth-century cultural history

Music in art in the nineteenth century

Historical performance practice and ideas of performance

Teaching historical literacy across the disciplines

Committees/Professional groups/Services

2019: President, Haydn Society of North America

2017: Chair, CAI Postgraduate Committee

2017: Conference Convener, Combined Annual Meeting of the Australian Musicological Society and New Zealand Musicological Society, ‘Performing History’, The University of Auckland School of Music, 8-10 Dec.

2016-  Associate Editor, Higher Education Research and Development.

2014-  Advisor, ‘Australia and New Zealand’, Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwartonline encyclopedia

2013-  Editorial Board, Journal of Music History Pedagogy.

2013- Peer reviewer, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

2012- Auckland Representative, NZ Musicological Society (Secretary from 2018).