Peter Bloom is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an acade ...

. He obtained his BA in music at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

, his Ph.D. in musicology 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 ...

, and studied the oboe with John de Lancie at the

Curtis Institute of Music The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship. Hi ...

. Professor Bloom came to Smith College in 1970 and retired in 2017. He specializes in European composers of the 19th century, has published on Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, and Claude Debussy, but is best known for his books, editions, and essays on the life and work of Hector Berlioz. He is an editor of Berlioz's complete correspondence and complete music criticism; his new edition of ''Les Mémoires d'Hector Berlioz'' appeared from the Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, in 2019. Bloom organized international conferences on Berlioz and his era in 1982 and 2000 (at Smith College). From 1997 to 2003 he was a member of the Paris-based Comité international Hector Berlioz that sponsored five international conferences to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the composer's birth and among other things attempted to have Berlioz's remains transferred from the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris to the Panthéon, which honors "les grands hommes" of the French Nation. Then-President of France

Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as Ma ...

, after initially agreeing to the transfer, changed his mind. In March 2012, Bloom was an adviser to "Debussy's Paris: Art, Music, & Sounds of the City," an aural and visual art exhibit at the Smith College Museum of Art on composer Claude Debussy and Paris during the Belle Epoque. In 2016, for his work on Berlioz, he was presented with the medal of The Berlioz Society, London. Peter Bloom Smith College faculty biography and list of publications: http://www.smith.edu/music/faculty_bloom.php

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloom, Peter Smith College faculty Swarthmore College alumni Curtis Institute of Music alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Berlioz scholars