Elisabeth Covel Le Guin (born July 25, 1957) is an American musicologist and cellist. Originally the

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) is an American orchestra based in San Francisco. PBO is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical and Romantic music on original instruments. The orchestra performs its subscri ...

's principal cellist in the 1980s, she later got her PhD in Music at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and she worked at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

from 1997 until 2022. A

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

and

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, she is the author of '' Boccherini's Body'' (2005) and '' The Tonadilla in Performance'' (2013).

Biography

Le Guin was born on July 25, 1957; her parents are science fiction author

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...

and historian Charles Le Guin. She attended the

San Francisco Conservatory of Music The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California, United States. As of 2024, it had more than 440 students. History The San Francisco Conservatory of Music was founded in 1917 by Ada ...

, where she obtained BMus in Cello in 1979. She performed as a cellist for decades; she was part of Artaria String Quartet,

Boston Early Music Festival The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is a non-profit organization founded in 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts, to promote historical music performance. It arranges an annual Boston and New York City concert series, produces opera recordings, and ...

, Concerto Amabile and Smithsonian Concerto Grosso, and she became the

's principal cellist in 1986. She later did graduate studies at

, where she obtained an MA in 1992 and PhD in Music in 1997; her doctoral dissertation ''"As My Works Show Me To Be": Physicality as Compositional Technique in the Instrumental Music of Luigi Boccherini'' was supervised by

Daniel Heartz Daniel Heartz (1928–2019) was an American musicologist and professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley. Heartz studied at Harvard University. He lived in Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of ...

. In 1997, she joined the

. She won the 2003 Alfred Einstein Award and 2007

Noah Greenberg Award The Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society is granted annually to musical scholars and performers in order to build relationships between the two and to encourage efforts in historical performance. The award was established by ...

. In 2005, she published '' Boccherini's Body'', which focuses on the work of Classical-era composer

Luigi Boccherini Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (, also , ; 19 February 1743 – 28 May 1805) was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and '' galante'' style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major classi ...

. She won the 2015 Otto Kinkeldey Award for her book '' The Tonadilla in Performance'' (2013), which its publisher called the "first major study of the

tonadilla Tonadilla was a Spanish musical song form of theatrical origin; not danced. The genre was a type of short, satirical musical comedy popular in 18th-century Spain, and later in Cuba and other Spanish colonial countries. It originated as a song typ ...

in English". In 2022, she retired from UCLA and became professor emeritus. She was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in Music Research in 2019, providing funding for ''Si Yo Fuera Una Canción'', a bilingual podcast about the musical interests of people in

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...

. She was elected

in 2021.

Bibliography

*'' Boccherini's Body'' (2005) *'' The Tonadilla in Performance'' (2013)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Guin, Elisabeth 1957 births Living people American classical cellists American women classical cellists 20th-century American cellists 21st-century American musicologists American women musicologists San Francisco Conservatory of Music alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences