Professor Philip Brett was born in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, received his academic degrees from King's College, Cambridge. He was a distinguished professor of musicology, accomplished keyboard player, author and authority on music of the Elizabethan period. He spent his entire teaching career in the University of California system: at Berkeley from 1966 to 1991, at Riverside from 1991 to 2001, and at UCLA for one extraordinary year. From 1976 onward, Philip produced a steady series of influential articles and books exploring the implications of gay and lesbian sexuality in music. Some of these works included, Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology (Routledge 1994), Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality (Indiana University Press 1995), and Decomposition: Post-Disciplinary Performance (Indiana UP 2000).In appreciation of his extraordinary achievement as scholar, teacher and organizer, the Gay and Lesbian Study Group of the American Musicology Society, created the Philip Brett Award in 1996. They give the award each year to honor exceptional musicological work in the field of GLBT studies. For his specialization of early music he received the Noah Greenberg Award in 1980 and a Grammy nomination in 1991, especially the operas of Benjamin Britten. He died of cancer just one day shy of his 65th birthday. He is survived by his registered domestic/life partner of 28 years, Professor George Haggerty, Chair of the Department of English at University of California, Riverside and an aunt.
Professor Philip Brett was born in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, received his academic degrees from King's College, Cambridge. He was a distinguished professor of musicology, accomplished keyboard player, author and authority on music of the Elizabethan period. He spent his entire teaching career in the University of California system: at Berkeley from 1966 to 1991, at Riverside from 1991 to 2001, and at UCLA for one extraordinary year. From 1976 onward, Philip produced a steady series of influential articles and books exploring the implications of gay and lesbian sexuality in music. Some of these works included, Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology (Routledge 1994), Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality (Indiana University Press 1995), and Decomposition: Post-Disciplinary Performance (Indiana UP 2000).In appreciation of his extraordinary achievement as scholar, teacher and organizer, the Gay and Lesbian Study Group of the American Musicology Society, created the Philip Brett Award in 1996. They give the award each year to honor exceptional musicological work in the field of GLBT studies. For his specialization of early music he received the Noah Greenberg Award in 1980 and a Grammy nomination in 1991, especially the operas of Benjamin Britten. He died of cancer just one day shy of his 65th birthday. He is survived by his registered domestic/life partner of 28 years, Professor George Haggerty, Chair of the Department of English at University of California, Riverside and an aunt.
