It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Eric Salzman on December 13, who had been due to participate in this conference as a panelist. A composer, music critic, record producer and impresario, Salzman was significantly a pioneer of the concept of “New Music Theater”. Exploring the spaces in between grand opera and popular musicals, his monograph The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body (2008), co-authored with Thomas Desi, puts forth the notion of music theater as an emergent alternative art form in the 20th and 21st centuries. His monograph Twentieth Century Music: An Introduction (1967) has also enjoyed long-standing use as an academic course book in universities.
Salzman graduated with an MFA from Princeton University in 1956, where his teachers included Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. He was later the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship enabling him to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and at the Darmstadt school in Germany. He is survived by his wife, Lorna Salzman, and their two daughters Eva and Stephanie.