Don Fader (Professor of Musicology) joined the tenure-track faculty at the UA School of Music in 2008.  He holds an A.M. in the performance of historical wind instruments (1993), and a Ph.D. in musicology (2000) from Stanford University. Before coming to UA, he taught at Indiana University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and UNC-Greensboro.

Dr. Fader’s research takes in a broad spectrum of issues relating to music and cultural exchange between Italy and France in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, and his interests range from performance practice to cultural history, and aesthetics to the history of theory. His work on French baroque music began as laureate of the Bourse Chateaubriand and Chercheur Associé at the Centre de Musique Baroque at Versailles (1997-98). He is the author of numerous articles in collections and journals, including Journal of Musicology, Music & Letters, Early Music, Revue de musicologie, and the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, among others. His essay, “The ‘Cabale du Dauphin,’” received the Westrup Prize as distinguished contribution to Music & Letters for 2005, and the collective volume, Itinéraires d’André Campra, in which his essay “Campra et le Régent” appeared, won the 2013 Prix du patrimoine (ACDA, Paris). Dr. Fader is also the author of four editions, of which Antonio Biffi’s Miserere (ca.1702), received its modern premiere at the Utrecht Early Music Festival in 2013. In 2016, he was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, resulting in a book for Boydell & Brewer (UK) based on discoveries in a trove of documents at the French national library: Music, Dance, and Franco-Italian Cultural Exchange c. 1700: Michel Pignolet de Montéclair and the Prince de Vaudémont (2021). As part of his work on the book, he discovered a new collection of trios by Montéclair, which he premiered in collaboration with the Tallahassee Bach Parley (2023) and which are being published by A-R editions. He is currently at work on a second book on music in the world of Philippe II d’Orléans, Regent of France, and an edition of Philippe’s newly discovered French cantatas.

Dr. Fader has given research and public talks all over the United States and Europe, and recently served on the organizing committee for the conference “Le Traité de l’harmonie de Jean-Philippe Rameau en son temps : discours théoriques et pédagogiques, composition et pratiques musicales autour de 1722,” held at the Sorbonne Université (13-15 October 2022). He also currently serves as Reviews Editor for the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music.

A professional recorder player and amateur harpsichordist, Dr. Fader combines his interests in musicology and performance through courses in performance practice and the coaching of ensembles in various styles of early music. He collaborated with Gesa Kordes in founding the University of Alabama Early Chamber Ensembles in 2009. Dr. Fader has played, lectured, and given master classes on performance practice at numerous festivals and institutions. He has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles in the United States and Europe and has been heard on National Public Radio’s “Harmonia” and “Performance Today.” He was concerto soloist with the Tallahassee Bach Parley, Bloomington Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, the Staunton Music Festival, TroisdorfBAROCK, the Dayton Bach Society, SarabandaBonn, and the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra.

Book: Music, Dance, and Franco-Italian Cultural Exchange Exchange c. 1700: Michel Pignolet de Montéclair and the Prince de Vaudémont (Martlesham, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2021).

Articles and Book Chapters:

“Montéclair, adversaire de Rameau et ami de Couperin : Une théorie pratique, pédagogique et surtout mélodique de « l’âme » musicale française,” in Le Traité de l’harmonie de Jean-Philippe Rameau en son temps : discours théoriques et pédagogiques, composition et pratiques musicales autour de 1722, ed. Théodora Psychoyou and Raphaëlle Legrand (Brepols, forthcoming)

“Monsieur and Philippe II d’Orléans: A Cultural Influence Beyond their Residences,” Les Foyers artistiques à la fin du règne de Louis XIV, ed. Anne-Madeleine Goulet, Michel da Vinha, and Jean Duron (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2019), 37-49.

“Music in the Service of the King’s Brother: Philippe I d’Orléans (1640-1701) and Court Music Outside Versailles,” Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 19 (2013) [published in 2017], http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm-issues/volume-19-no-1/music-in-the-service-of-the-kings-brother-philippe-i-dorleans-1640-1701-and-court-music-outside-versailles/

“’Les Ornemens de l’art’: Marc-Antoine Charpentier et la tradition du sublime harmonique,” À la croisée des arts – Sublime et musique religieuse en Europe, ed. Sophie Hache and Thierry Favier (Paris: Garnier, 2015), 275-294.

“La duchesse de Bourgogne, le mécénat des Noailles, et les arts dramatiques à la cour autour de 1700,” Etudes sur le XVIII^e siècle 41 (2014): 175-190

“Campra et le Régent : querelles, rivalités et avancées de l’harmonie française,” Itinéraires d’André Campra (1660-1744), d’Aix à Versailles, de l’Église à l’Opéra, ed. Catherine Cessac (Wavre, Belgium: Mardaga; Versailles, France: Centre de musique baroque, 2012), 15-29.

“The Goûts-réunis in French Vocal Music through the Lens of the Recueil d’airs sérieux et à boire (1695-1710),” Revue de musicologie 96/2 (2010): 321-63.

“Philippe II d’Orléans’s ‘Chanteurs italiens,’ the Italian Cantata, and the Goûts-réunis under Louis XIV,” Early Music 35/2 (May 2007): 237-249.

“The ‘Cabale du Dauphin,’ Campra and Italian Comedy: The Courtly Politics of French Musical Patronage Around 1700,” Music and Letters 86/3 (Aug. 2005): 380-413.

“The Honnête homme as Music Critic: Taste, Rhetoric, and Politesse in the 17th-Century French Reception of Italian Music,” Journal of Musicology 20/1 (Winter 2003): 3-44.

Editions:

Philippe II d’Orléans, Three Cantates françoises, Centre de musique baroque, Versailles, forthcoming

Michel Pignolet de Montéclair: Twenty-four Trios for Two Flutes and Continuo, in Recent Researches in Music of the Baroque Era, A-R Editions, Middleton, WI. In press.

Jean Martin, “Serenade” and “A Force de branler la mâchoire” from Premier livre d’airs (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1688), Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music vol. 25 (June 2012), http://www.sscm-wlscm.org/index.php/main-catalogue?sid=56:Martin-Jean. Premiered by the Nordic Baroque Band, Stockholm, Sweden, 6 Nov. 2015.

Antonio Biffi, Miserere mei, Deus (ca.1702), for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music, vol. 15 (Oct. 2009), http://www.sscm-wlscm.org/index.php/main-catalogue?sid=19:Biffi-Antonio. Premiered at the Utrecht Early Music Festival (Netherlands) by Le Parnasse français, directed by Louis Castelain, 24 Aug. 2013.