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Naomi Graber

American music, Twentieth-century Music

Naomi Graber (associate professor) joined the faculty of UGA in 2013. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill She is the recipient of the Rhonda A. and Robert Hillel Silver Award from the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, the Virgil Thomson Fellowship from the Society for American Music, as well as fellowships to study at the Library of Congress, the Arnold Schönberg-Centre in Vienna, and the Kurt Weill Foundation. Her research centers on twentieth century American music, especially Broadway and film of the 1930s and 1940s. Her first book, Kurt Weill's America was published by Oxford University Press in 2021, and she co-edited The Works of Kurt Weill: Transformations and Transfigurations in 20th Century Music, published by Brepols in 2023. Currently, she is co-editor of Studies in Musical Theatre, and her publications have appeared in American Music, The Journal for the Society of American Music, Journal of Musicological Research, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image and Studies in Musical Theatre, and she teaches classes on American Popular Music, Music in the United States, Film Music, and Music after 1750.

 

Selected Publications
 

Books, author 

Kurt Weill’s America. Oxford University Press, 2021. 

 

Books, editor 

The Cambridge Companion to Kurt Weill. Cambridge University Press, under contract. 

(with Marida Rizzuti), The Works of Kurt Weill: Transformations and Reconfigurations in Twentieth Century Music. Brepols, 2023. 

 

Peer-reviewed Articles 

“Schenker, Race, and Antisemitism.” In Colloquy on Philip Ewell’s On Music Theory. Journal of Musicological Research. Edited by Daniele Shlomit Sofer. Available online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01411896.2025.2554538.  

“Let’s Talk About It: Discussion, Participation, and the Music History Classroom.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy 14.2 (2024): 82–96.   

“Body Music: Intensified Continuity, Affect, and Character Engagement.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 17.1 (2023): 1–21. 

“Kurt Weill’s The River is Blue: ‘Film-Opera’ and Politics in 1930s Hollywood.” Journal for the Society of American Music 11.3 (2017): 313–53. 

“Colliding Diasporas: Kurt Weill’s Ulysses Africanus and Black–Jewish Relations During the Great Depression.” Musical Quarterly 99.3–4 (2016): 321–355. 

“Memories that Remain: Mamma Mia! and the Disruptive Potential of Nostalgia.” Studies in Musical Theatre 9.2 (2015): 187–98. 

 

Invited Essays and Chapters 

“Kurt Weill’s Judaism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Kurt Weill. Edited by Naomi Graber. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. 

“‘We All Want to Change the World’: (Mis)Remembering the 1960s in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe (2007).” In The Palgrave Companion to Nostalgia and the Hollywood Musical. Edited by Hannah Lewis and Dominic Broomfield-McHugh. Palgrave, forthcoming. 

“‘I’ll Let You Know When Stravinsky Has a Hit’: Sondheim and Art.” In The Cambridge Companion to Stephen Sondheim. Edited by James O’Leary and Dominic Broomfield-McHugh. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.  

“Rodgers and Hammerstein and Opera.” In Rodgers and Hammerstein in Context. Edited by William Everett and Dominic Broomfield-McHugh. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. 

“Boldly Going: Title Tunes in the Age of Reboots, Relaunches, and Revivals.” Oxford Handbook of Music and Television. Edited by James Deaville, Jessica Getman, and Ron Rodman. Oxford University Press, forthcoming. 

“‘Steel Veins’: Railroads on Parade and the Industrial Folk.” In The Works of Kurt Weill: Transformations and Reconfigurations in Twentieth Century Music. Edited by Naomi Graber and Marida Rizzuti, 57–78. Brepols, 2023.  

“‘What Does God Need With a Starship?’ The Evolving Role of Religion in Star Trek’s Utopia,” In Music in Star Trek: Sound, Utopia, and the Future. Edited by Jessica Getman, Brooke McCorkle, and Evan Ware, 134–153. Routledge, 2022. 

“‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ Theatre and Theatricality in the Trump Campaign.” American Music 35.4. (Special Issue: Music and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign (2017): 435–45. 

Music Areas:
Musicology & Ethnomusicology
Other Musical Interests:

Naomi Graber (assistant professor) joined the faculty of UGA in 2013. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that same year with the dissertation “Found in Translation: Kurt Weill on Broadway and in Hollywood, 1935–1939,” which earned her the Glen Haydon Award for an Outstanding Dissertation in Musicology. She is the recipient of the Rhonda A. and Robert Hillel Silver Award from the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, as well as fellowships to study at the Library of Congress, the Arnold Schönberg-Centre in Vienna, and the Kurt Weill Foundation. Her research centers on twentieth century American music, especially the Broadway stages of the 1930s and 1940s. She is currently writing a book on Kurt Weill's American career, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. She is also interested in modern representations of gender in Broadway musicals and Hollywood film scores. Her publications have appeared in American Music, The Journal for the Society of American Music, and Studies in Musical Theatre, and she teaches classes on American Popular Music, Music in the United States, Modernism and Music, Film Music, and Music after 1750. 

Contact Information

ngraber@uga.edu
Office Phone: 706-542-6231

Other Information


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