Virginia E. Whealton

Virginia E. Whealton is an Assistant Professor of Musicology and Graduate Research Coordinator at Texas Tech University's School of Music. A specialist in nineteenth-century music, she is particularly interested in French music, musical nationalism and cosmopolitanism, and the role of the press in reshaping musicians' public image during the mid-nineteenth century. Much of her research has investigated how Romantic Parisian musicians like Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, and Félicien David used prose travelogues and travel-inspired compositions to craft their public personae, contribute to sociopolitical discourse, and innovatively construct musically simulated travel. She also researches musical culture in early nineteenth-century Norfolk, Virginia.

Dr. Whealton's writing and archival research in Europe have been supported by a series of grants, including a Mellon Innovating International Research and Teaching Fellowship, a Bartlet Grant from the American Musicological Society, and awards from the American Council for Polish Culture and the Polish American Arts Association. During the Summer of 2020, she will hold one of TTU's Humanities Center Alumni College Fellowships to conduct research in Weimar, Germany.

She has enjoyed presenting at musicology and interdisciplinary conferences across the United States, Canada, and Europe, as well as in forums that engage the broader public. Recent presentations include a paper at the Fall 2019 annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, a plenary at the Music Library Association 2020 annual meeting, and a lecture at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.

A Virginian, she maintains her links to the Hampton Roads area by serving on the advisory board of the Bay Youth Orchestras of Virginia and by researching the Moses Myers Music Collection at the Chrysler Museum of Art. She enjoys fiddling, playing classical violin and piano repertoire, and practicing her French and Polish. Her calico cat, Mylena, serves as her senior research assistant.

Recent Publications

“Transformed Abruzzi: Berlioz's Harold en Italie as Récit de voyage,” in Symphonism in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. José Ignacio Suárez García and Ramón Sobrino, Speculum Musicae (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming, December 2019), 43–66, ISBN 978-2-503-58643-4.

“Franz Liszt's Album d'un voyageur: Music, Memorials, and the Anthropocene,” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 41(2019):543–63.

Courses Taught

MUHL  3303 (formerly MUHL 2301) Music History II: Bach to Brahms

MUHL 4300/5320 Great Musicians in Paris

MUHL 4300/5320 Music and Nationalism

MUHL 4300/5335 Romantic Music

MUHL 4300/5311 Symphonic Literature

MUHL 5300 Graduate Music History Survey

MUSI 7000 Research

 

Degrees

PhD in Musicology, Indiana University—Bloomington

MA in Musicology, Indiana University—Bloomington

Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance, summa cum laude with major honors in music, Houghton College