Joseph Horowitz

Joseph Horowitz is a music historian and the Executive Director of the PostClassical Ensemble. He has long been a pioneer in classical music programming, beginning with his tenure as Artistic Advisor for the annual Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y. As Executive Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, resident orchestra of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he received national attention in the 1990s for “The Russian Stravinsky,” “American Transcendentalists,” “Flamenco,” and other festivals exploring the folk roots of concert works. Over the past three decades, Horowitz has created more than 100 interdisciplinary music festivals —including the annual American Composers Festival presented by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra.

Called “a force in classical music today, a prophet and an agitator” by the New York Times, and “our nation’s leading scholar of the symphony orchestra” by Charles Olton, former President of the League of American Orchestras, Horowitz is also the award-winning author of ten books mainly dealing with the institutional history of classical music in the United States. Both his Classical Music in America: A History (2005) and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from 20th Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts (2008) were named best books of the year by The Economist. As Project Director of an NEH National Education Project, as well as an NEH Teacher Training Institute, he is the author of a book for young readers entitled Dvořák in America, linked to a state-of-the-art DVD.