Laureen Whitelaw

Laureen Whitelaw received her Ph.D. in Musicology from Northwestern University with a dissertation on the orchestral, operatic and liturgical works of female composers of Southern Germany in the late Enlightenment. She is recipient of a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst research grant, which made possible her dissertation research in Bavaria in 2010-11. Whitelaw has served on the faculty at SMU since 2017 as both Visiting Assistant Professor and Adjunct Lecturer of Musicology and was Instructor of Musicology at Northwestern University, during which time she was voted by the Associated Student Government to Northwestern’s Faculty Honor Roll. She is also recipient of a Leadership Fellowship from Northwestern’s Center for Leadership; served as Artistic Coordinator at Ravinia Festival’s Stean’s Institute; and has served on committees of various concert series and at-risk youth organizations.

Whitelaw specializes in the music and culture of the 18th and 19th centuries, with emphasis on the intersection of female authorship, agency, and identity, and various sociopolitical movements of the late Enlightenment. Introducing original research in this and other areas, she has presented at several national and international conferences, including the International Musicological Society (Zurich), the American Musicological Society, MusEx International Conference (Graz, Austria), the Second International Conference on Women’s Work in Music (Wales, U.K.), and at various others in Europe and in the U.S. Her work has also been featured on APM’s national program “Performance Today” (see link below). Whitelaw is published internationally and is presently working on a manuscript challenging standard assumption concerning women and the Enlightenment.

While completing an undergraduate degree in piano performance, Whitelaw studied with celebrated pianist William Browning at the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, a student of Carl Friedberg (Brahms; C. Schumann) and Will Humble (Godowsky); James Winn, former solo pianist for the New York City Ballet and resident pianist at Telluride; and performing artist Lois Brandwynne at the University of California, Davis. A secondary research interest in performance practice/period performance led to a workshop at Cornell University with Malcolm Bilson.