Philip Brett
Grammy-nommed choral conductor and UCLA musicologist
English native earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Cambridge. He was an authority on the music of the English renaissance and on Benjamin Britten, one of 20th-century England's most prominent composers. In lectures and a scholarly paper, Brett argued Britten's homosexuality permeated his work. As a result, Brett is credited with helping form "new musicology," a branch of study aimed at understanding musical compositions through feminist, gender and cultural studies.
Brett helped found the Gay and Lesbian Study Group of the American Musicological Society, which in 1996 established an annual award in his name to honor exceptional musicological work in the field of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual studies.
Brett was also known for his work on 16th-century composer William Byrd. He was general editor of "The Byrd Edition," a 20-volume collection of the composer's music.
He taught at UC Berkeley 24 years, served at UC Riverside starting in 1991, and most recently served at UCLA. He was credited with transforming parts of the programs at each institution.
He was given the Noah Greenberg Award by the American Musicological Society in 1980 for directing performances of Peri's "Euridice" and "Monteverdi's Orfeo" as well as recordings of motets from Byrd's Gradualia. In 1991, his achievement as a conductor for such works earned him a Grammy nom.
He is survived by his longtime partner, UC Riverside professor George Haggerty.
