Howard Pollack is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Music at the University of Houston

University of Houston

The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...

.

Howard Pollack (born in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, March 17, 1952) studied piano with Jennie Glickman while attending James Madison High School. He continued his piano studies with John Kollen and Eugene Bossart at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, where he received his Bachelor of Music in 1973; and with Adele Marcus at the Aspen Music Festival in 1970. He received a Master of Arts degree (1977) and Ph.D. (1981) in musicology from Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, where he wrote his thesis, "Walter Piston

Walter Piston

Walter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....

 and His Music", under the supervision of William Austin. He also studied composition privately with Samuel Adler in Rochester.

After serving on the faculties of the Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester Institute of Technology

The Rochester Institute of Technology is a private university, located within the town of Henrietta in metropolitan Rochester, New York, United States...

, Cornell University, and Empire State College

Empire State College

Empire State College, one of the thirteen arts and science colleges of the State University of New York, is a multi-site institution offering associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees. It is primarily oriented towards the adult learner...

, Pollack joined the faculty of the University of Houston

University of Houston

The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...

 in 1987, becoming John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Music in 2005.

Pollack's books include Walter Piston (1982); "Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and his Students, from Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

 to Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...

" (1992); "John Alden Carpenter

John Alden Carpenter

John Alden Carpenter was an American composer.-Biography:Born in Park Ridge, Illinois, Carpenter was raised in a musical household. He was educated at Harvard University, where he studied under John Knowles Paine, and was president of the Glee Club and wrote music for the Hasty-Pudding Club...

: A Chicago Composer" (1995); "Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man" (1999); and "George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

: His Life and Work" (2006). In addition, he co-edited, with Claus Reschke, "German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Fusion (1890-1989)" (1992). He also has published articles on Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

, Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert

Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

, Charles Griffes

Charles Griffes

Charles Tomlinson Griffes was an American composer for piano, chamber ensembles and for voice.-Musical career:...

, Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber

Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...

, and Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...

, among other topics. Currently, he is writing a biography of Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein

Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...

.

Pollack received the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP (2000) and the Irving Lowens Award from the Society for American Music (2001) for "Aaron Copland," and an Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (2007) and another Deems Taylor Award (2008) for "George Gershwin" His other awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

 Foundation for Music, the Newberry Library

Newberry Library

The Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...

, the American Musicological Society, and the Society for American Music.