Christoph Wolff is a professor emeritus at Harvard University. He is director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, the world’s preeminent center of Bach scholarship. Born and educated in Germany, he studied organ and historical keyboard instruments, musicology and art history at the Universities of Berlin, Erlangen, and Freiburg, taking a performance diploma in 1963 and the Dr. Phil. in 1966. He taught the history of music at Erlangen, Toronto, Princeton, and Columbia Universities before joining the Harvard faculty in 1976 as Professor of Music; William Powell Mason Professor of Music, 1985-2002; and Adams University Professor, 2002-2012. At Harvard he served as Chair of the Music Department (1980-88, 90-91), Acting Director of the University Library (1991-92), and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1992-2000). Recipient of various international prizes, several honorary degrees, he holds an honorary professorship at the University of Freiburg and memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften. He currently serves as Director of the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig and President of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales. He has published widely on the history of music from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge, 1991), Mozart’s Requiem (Berkeley, 1994), The New Bach Reader (New York, 1998), and Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York, 2000–translated into eight languages) are his most recent books.
(Spring 2014)