Louis Bergonzi

Background

About Louis Bergonzi

Dr. Louis Bergonzi is Professor Emeritus the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he was Head of Music and Director the UIC Orchestra. Previous positions have included serving as Professor and Daniel J. Perrino Chair in Music Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he specialized in conducting and string education; and on the music education faculty at the Eastman School of Music, where he was Director of the Rochester-Eastman Urban String Project, a multifaceted program for preparing studio and group string teachers for work in urban settings. His career as began as Gr. 4-12 string specialist and orchestra conductor for the Lexington (Massachusetts) Public Schools. From he served as President of the American String Teachers Association. Active as a clinician, adjudicator, and guest conductor of youth orchestras throughout Asia, Australia, and North America, he has written for the American String Teacher, Music Educators Journal, and the Journal of Research in Music Education. Dr. Bergonzi contributed a chapter on teacher preparation for work in diverse classrooms in the ASTA publication, String Teaching in America: Strategies for a Diverse Society, and a chapter, “Gender and Sexual Diversity Challenges (for Socially Just) Music Education” in The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education (2015). He is co-author of Effects of Arts Education on Participation in the Arts (National Endowment for the Arts, 1996) and of Teaching Music Through Performance in Orchestra, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (GIA, 2002/2003/2007). His Rounds and Canons for Strings: Shaping Musical Independence and arrangements for younger orchestras are published by Kjos Publishers and Alfred Music Publishing. He was co-director of Establishing Identity: LGBTQ Studies & Music Education I (2010/2012/2016) symposia designed to provide energy to the discussion of how LGBTQ issues operate within music education in terms of research, curriculum, teacher preparation, and the musical lives and careers of LGBTQ music students and teachers. His current scholarship investigates music classrooms as personal and curricular queer spaces.