Fredric Lieberman


Fredric Lieberman was an American ethnomusicologist, composer, music professor, and author. As a faculty member at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he was affiliated with the Music Department. UCSC is where he became known for teaching and studying the Grateful Dead.
He was perhaps best known for his role as the key contact between the University of California at Santa Cruz and The Grateful Dead, in finding a home for the band's archives at the university's McHenry Library and for his collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart on three of Hart's books: Planet Drum, Drumming at the Edge of Magic, and Spirit Into Sound. He was a composer of music and published several of his compositions. He co-authored a biographical study of composer Lou Harrison with Dr. Leta Miller and authored numerous other publications.
Lieberman's early research focused on East Asian musics, then American vernacular music, as well as his work on theories of organology and copyright law. He was an avid collector of traditional musical instruments from around the world.

History

Fredric Lieberman was raised in New York and graduated from Fieldston High School in 1958. He attended the Eastman School of Music where he graduated with a Bachelors in Music with a focus in composition, musicology, and conducting. Lieberman continued his education by receiving a Masters from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Ethnomusicology. In 1968 he was given his Ph.D. in music with an emphasis in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Through the years he has taught at Brown, the University of Washington, and eventually settled at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Lieberman co-wrote three books with Mickey Hart and was a consultant for him on various projects. One of these, Planet Drum: A Celebration of Percussion and Rhythm, also co-written by D.A. Sonneborn, examines rhythm's role in cultural traditions and considers the primal percussion experience of the "Big Bang.".
He also co-wrote with Leta E. Miller, Lou Harrison ; a study of the life and career of Lou Harrison, and he also wrote Chinese music: An annotated bibliography.
Lieberman also started and was CEO of his own company named Music Forensics in which he consulted with attorneys and musicians over copyright laws.
Lieberman died on May 4, 2013 due to cardiac arrest.

Publications