Benjamin Binder

Benjamin Binder is Assistant Professor of Music History and Theory at Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, PA). He is also a collaborative pianist, and he believes passionately in the close connection between scholarship and performance, a connection which he actively pursues in his own professional life and encourages his students to explore in his courses.

Dr. Binder holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Princeton University and a master’s degree in piano performance from Washington University. He has presented papers at scholarly conferences on topics ranging from modern stagings of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to the concept of inwardness in Schumann’s songs. His article “Kundry and the Jewish Voice: Anti-Semitism and Musical Transcendence in Wagner’s Parsifal” was recently published in the Spring 2009 issue of Current Musicology. Dr. Binder’s enthusiasm for the music of Schumann is reflected by his upcoming research projects: a series of articles on Schumann’s songs, a scholarly edition of the songs of other composers that Schumann reviewed in the German press, and a book-length study of Schumann’s beloved piano work Carnaval.

As a pianist, Dr. Binder has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and a participant in the Cleveland Institute of Music Art Song Festival. In 2010, he will launch two new concert initiatives intended to further the appreciation of art song in Pittsburgh, serving as artistic director and principal accompanist. The Pittsburgh Song Collaborative, a consortium of singers and pianists devoted to art song performance in Pittsburgh, will present two concerts at Duquesne devoted to the songs of Schumann in honor of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The Song Soirée Series at the Carnegie Museum of Art and The Andy Warhol Museum will allow audiences to enjoy a diverse variety of songs in a casual, intimate setting. Later in 2010, Dr. Binder will also be releasing a solo piano CD on the Everglade label, featuring the 22 movements of Schumann’s Carnaval paired with corresponding pieces newly commissioned from prominent young American composers.