Harold Stone Powers (August 5, 1928 – March 15, 2007) was an American

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

, ethnomusicologist, and

music theorist Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

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Career

Born in New York City on August 5, 1928, he earned his B.Mus. in piano from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

in 1950 and an MFA in composition and musicology from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1952. As a

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, he studied

Indian music Owing to India's vastness and diversity, Indian music encompasses numerous genres in multiple varieties and forms which include classical music, folk (Bollywood), rock, and pop. It has a history spanning several millennia and developed ove ...

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

for two years before continuing at Princeton where he received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in musicology. His dissertation was on “The Background of the South Indian Raga System.” Powers taught at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

from 1958 to 1960 and at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

from 1961 to 1973 before returning to Princeton where he was named the Scheide Professor of Music History in 1995 and in 2001 assumed Emeritus status. Powers returned to India several times to study music there on

John D. Rockefeller III John Davison Rockefeller III (March 21, 1906 – July 10, 1978) was an American philanthropist. Rockefeller was the eldest son and second child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller as well as a grandson of Standard Oil co-found ...

and Fulbright Senior fellowships. Powers was known for intensive study of both

Renaissance music Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century '' ars nova'', the Tr ...

and music theory and several world music traditions (especially Indian music); this allowed him to reevaluate the concept of

mode Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine * ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...

. He did this in a number of articles, including “Mode” in the

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

(1980), a landmark of scholarship on the subject, " Tonal types and modal categories in Renaissance polyphony" (1981), "Modal representations in

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

offertories" ased mostly on Palestrina's ''Offertoria'' cycle(1982), "Is mode real?" (1992), "Anomalous modalities" (1996), “Language Models and Musical Analysis,” and “Puccini’s Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition,” Powers was the first foreigner to perform at the

Tyagaraja Aradhana Tyagaraja Aradhana is an annual ''aradhana'' (a Sanskrit term meaning act of glorifying God or a person) of Telugu saint composer Tyagaraja. The music festival is observed in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, primarily in Tiruvaiy ...

Thiruvaiyaru Thiruvaiyaru (also spelled as Tiruvaiyaru or Tiruvayyaru) is a panchayat town in Thanjavur District in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Etymology Thiruvaiyaru means ''Five Rivers around the city''. The Five Rivers are Vadavaar, Vennaar, Vett ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The Harold Powers World Travel Fund, administered by the

American Musicological Society The American Musicological Society (AMS) is a musicological organization which researches, promotes and produces publications on music. Founded in 1934, the AMS was begun by leading American musicologists of the time, and was crucial in legitim ...

, was established in 2006 to “encourage and assist Ph.D. candidates, post-docs, and junior faculty in all fields of musical scholarship to travel anywhere in the world to carry out the necessary work for their dissertation or other research. The Fund honors the

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

ic scholar and distinguished longtime AMS member whose publications have ranged from music and language to medieval mode to Indian music to

Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long lin ...

and whose interests are wider still, but always with the communicative aspects of music at their base.”

Books

*''The Background of the South Indian Rāga-System'' (dissertation, Princeton U., 1959) *(ed.) ''Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk'' (Princeton, NJ, 1968) *William Ashbrook and Harold Powers, "Puccini's Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition" (Princeton, NJ, 1991)

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Powers, Harold 1928 births 2007 deaths Stanford University alumni Syracuse University alumni Princeton University alumni Harvard University faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty Princeton University faculty American music theorists Pupils of Edward T. Cone 20th-century American musicologists