Paul Laird


Paul Robert Laird is an American musicologist at the University of Kansas born in Louisville, Kentucky.

Education

Laird holds a Ph.D. in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include the Spanish and Latin American villancico, Leonard Bernstein, the Broadway musical, and Baroque cello. He has taught at Pennsylvania State University, Binghamton University and the University of Denver. Reviewer Alvaro Torrente described Laird's book Towards a History of the Spanish Villancico as "a milestone in the study of the villancico."

Publications

He directs the Instrumental Collegium Musicum and is active as a Baroque cellist, performing with the Spencer Consort. In August 2002, he won a University of Kansas W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.
His 2004 book The Baroque Cello Revival: An Oral History features interviews with more than 40 cellists and instrument makers. His current project include two studies of the musical theater of Stephen Schwartz and the publication of the orchestral score of the Broadway show.
Laird was the director of the Division of Musicology at the University of Kansas from 2000 until 2009. He has taught at the University of Kansas since 1994 and has taught four courses on music research in Ecuador for the Universidad de Cuenca.

Publications

  • Towards a History of the Spanish Villancico
  • Leonard Bernstein: A Guide to Research
  • The Baroque Cello Revival: An Oral History
  • Res musicae: Essays in Honor of James W. Pruett
  • Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical
  • On Bunker's Hill: Essays in Honor of J. Bunker Clark
  • The Cambridge Companion to the Musical
  • Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms
  • WICKED: A Musical Biography

    Other literary works

Laird has contributed to: