Music professor Leta Miller has been appointed editor of the Journal of the Society for American Music, beginning in fall 2008, for a four-year term. Published quarterly, the journal is the leading periodical for studies in American music.
The Society for American Music was founded in 1975 and is a non-profit scholarly and educational organization with a mission "to stimulate the appreciation, performance, creation, and study of American music in all its diversity, and the full range of activities and institutions associated with that music."
For the past decade, Miller's research has focused on mid-20th-century American experimental music. She has published two books on composer Lou Harrison, as well as a critical edition of his works for Music in the United States of America (MUSA). Since 2000, Miller has also written more than a dozen articles on John Cage, Henry Cowell, Charles Ives, and others for such publications as American Music, 20th-Century Music, the Journal of Musicology, Musical Quarterly, and the Journal of the American Musicological Society.
In February, Miller received a $24,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for a book project titled "San Francisco's Musical Life, 1906-45." The award was designated as a We the People grant--a special recognition given by the NEH for model projects that advance the study, teaching, and understanding of American history and culture.
