Mark A. Pottinger

Overview

Dr. Pottinger is Professor of Music and Musicology and Chair of the Communication, Sound and Media Arts Department, where he founded the Sound Studies program, an area of research that is at the intersection of musicology, acoustics, audio technology and performance studies. 

Winner in 2017 of the prestigious Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, Dr. Pottinger is the author of a number of publications on the music and cultural life of nineteenth-century Europe and the contemporary listening environment. His most recent publication is the book Science and the Romantic Vision in Early Nineteenth-Century Opera (Boydell & Brewer, 2026), which examines the natural sciences in the first half of the nineteenth century and their relationship to the supernatural as found in early German, Italian and French romantic opera. He is also the author of the book Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor for the New Cambridge Music Handbook series (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Noted for his exuberant energy and passionate conversations about the power of music, Dr. Pottinger regularly lectures for The Metropolitan Opera and their HD Live in Schools education program and Pre-Show Tuesday Talks. He is currently serving as co-chief editor of Sound Studies Review: An International Peer-Reviewed Music Journal (Brepols Publishers), which is housed in the department.

Education

• Ph.D., Musicology: CUNY, The Graduate Center (2005)
• M.Phil., Musicology: CUNY, The Graduate Center (2002)
• M.Mus., Opera Studies: University of Leeds, England, UK (1996)
• B.A. (cum laude): Washington University in St. Louis (1995)

Courses Taught

• LLRN 105: The Magic of Opera: Words, Music and Stage
• MUSC 150 Roots: Music
• MUSC 290 Early Music Soundscapes: Antiquity to 1800
• MUSC 305 Music and French Identity: Paris and Versailles (Study Abroad)
• MUSC 323 Music and Romanticism
• MUSC 325 Modern Music and the Avant-Garde
• MUSC 400 Spl Topic: Opera as Text
• MUSC 400 Spl Topic: Opera, Religion, and Confinement
• MUSC 410 Indep. Study: Hermeneutics of Heavy Metal
• MUSC 410 Indep. Study: Advanced Music Theory
• MUSC 410 Indep. Study: Education and the Non-Profit in New York City
• MUSC 410 Indep. Study: Jazz, Hip Hop, and Black Social Justice
• MUSC 410 Indep. Study: Women and Music of the 1960s 

Research & Scholarly Activities

• Musicology, History of Science, Opera Studies, Nineteenth-Century Europe, Romanticism, Sound Studies, Concert Hall Acoustics

Publications

Recent Publications:

Jan. 2026: Science and the Romantic Vision in Early Nineteenth-Century Opera (Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2026), 216pp.

Oct. 2025: Donizetti: 'Lucia di Lammermoor' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), 196pp.

Nov. 2023: "Sound Recordings, Concert Halls, and the Politics of Live Music Listening,” Sound Studies Review: An International Peer-Reviewed Music Journal (Brepols Publishers), vol. 1., no. 1 (Spring 2023), pp. 41-66 [DOI:https://doi.org/10.1484/J.SSR.5.136469]

Nov. 2023: Book Review for Sound Studies Review: An International Peer-Reviewed Music Journal (Brepols Publishers), vol. 1., no. 1 (Spring 2023), pp. 107-111, of Edward J. Gillin, Sound Authorities: Scientific and Musical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2021) [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1484/J.SSR.5.136471]

March 2023: “Ritter's Musical Aesthetics, Der Freischütz, and the Certainty of Nature in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany," The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory (Taylor & Francis), Special Issue: "The Role of Uncertainty in Romantic Philosophy, Science, Literature, and Theory," Eds. Jocelyn Holland and Elizabeth Millán, vol. 98, no. 1, pp. 80-95; Winner of the Richard Sussman Essay Prize  [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00168890.2022.2158717]

Dec. 2022: Book Review for the Journal of the American Musicological Society (University of California Press), vol. 75, no. 3 (Fall 2022), pp. 599-603, of Kira Thurman, Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021) [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2022.75.3.599]

May 2022: "Buffalo Bill and the Sound of America During the 1889 World's Fair," America in the French Imaginary, 1789-1914: Music, Revolution and Race, Eds. Diana Hallman and César Leal (Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer), pp. 265-295 [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800105393.012]

June 2021: “Concert Hall Acoustics and the Sounding Heritage of the Inter-War Period in America: The Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1925)," Change Over Time: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built Environment (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press), Special Issue: "Sounding Heritage," Ed. Pamela Jordan, vol. 9, no. 2 (Fall 2019), pp. 214-231 [DOI: 10.1353/cot.2019.0012 ]

July 2020:  “Lucia and the Auscultation of Disease in Mid-Nineteenth-Century France,” Nineteenth-Century Music Review (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), Special Issue: “Music, Medical Science and the Body," Ed. Mark A. Pottinger, Vol. 19, No. 1 (April 2022), pp. 55-84 [DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479409820000075]

September 2019:  “French Music Criticism in the Nineteenth Century, 1789-1870,” The Cambridge History of Music Criticism, Ed. Christopher Dingle (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 125-146 [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139795425.008]

April 2019: Book Review for Music & Letters (Oxford University Press), vol. ix, no. 4 (November 2018), pp. 683-685, of Grand Opera Outside Paris: Opera on the Move in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Ed. Jens Hesselager (London and New York: Routledge, 2018) [Project MUSE: muse.jhu.edu/article/724293.]

August 2017: “Deep Listening: Selling and defining the experience of ‘live’ music,” The Berlin Journal, American Academy in Berlin, online edition, Fall 2017 (https://www.americanacademy.de/deep-listening/)

December 2015:  “Wagner in Exile: Paris, Halévy and The Queen,” Nineteenth-Century Music Review, vol. 12, no. 2 (Dec. 2015), pp. 253-284 [DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479409815000324]

Recent Conference Papers:

January 2026: “Phenomenology: A Pragmatic Approach to the Use of AI and Technology in Aesthetic Education,” International Maxine Greene Conference, “Maxine Greene’s Wide Awaken-ness: A Global Forum on Poetic and Social Imagination” (Online, 17 January 2026).

November 2024: Chair and Respondent to Paper Session, “The Outsider Within: Black and African Voices and European Music,” The American Musicological Society (AMS) Annual National Conference, Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois

October 2023: Chair and Respondent to Paper Session, “Religious Worlds & Representations,” Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) Midwest Regional Undergraduate Conference, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri

November 2022: Chair and Respondent to Paper Session, “Music and Medicine,” The American Musicological Society (AMS), Society for Music Theory (SMT), and the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Joint National Conference, Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana

October 2019: Chair and Respondent to Paper Session, “Transnationalisms,” France: Musiques, Cultures, 1789-1918 Pre-Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS) Annual National Conference, The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts

March 2019: “Sounding Space / Sounding Self,” Imagination, Integrity & Innovation Conference (The Maxine Greene Institute), Manhattan College, Riverdale, New York

September 2018:  “Deep Listening: The Politics of the Live Music Experience in the Age of Post-Truth,” International Music Conference, “Music and Musicology in the Age of Post-Truth,” University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

July 2018:  “The Sound of Invisible Light: Der Freischütz and the Romantic Science of Johann Wilhelm Ritter,” 20th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, England

March 2017:  “Science and the Sound of Disease in Lucia di Lammermoor (Paris, 1837),” Music and the Body Between Revolutions: 1789-1870, The Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, New York, New York

July 2016:  “Physiology and the Science of Hysteria in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor," 19th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, University of Oxford, Oxford, England

Recent Special Lectures/Invited Talks:

March 2026: “Science and the Romantic Vision in Early Nineteenth-Century Opera,” Invited lecture, Book Talk, Yale Opera Seminar, Yale University, New Haven, CT

November 2025: “Mozart’s Don Giovanni,” Pre-Concert Lecture (Nov. 11), List Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, NY

October 2025: “Mozart’s Don Giovanni,” Pre-Concert Lecture (Oct. 7), List Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, NY

March 2025: “Buffalo Bill and the Sound of America,” Invited lecture, Bard College, Berlin, Germany (Online Presentation)

October 2024: “Science and the Romantic Vision in Early Nineteenth-Century Opera,” Invited lecture, Bennington College, Bennington, VT

September 2024: “The Sound of Nature in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany,” Invited lecture, Musicology Lecture Series, Duke University, Durham, NC

August 2024: “Music and the Literary Imagination, Part II: Musical Romanticism and Literature,” The 39th Annual Bard Music Festival: Berlioz and His World, The Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

March 2024: “Music, Sound & the Matter in Between,” Public Lecture/Conversation with sound artist Thessia Machado, American Academy in Berlin, The Goethe-Institut, New York, NY

January 2024: “Gender and the Search for Identity in Bizet's Carmen,” Public Lecture,The Metropolitan Opera National Educators' Conference, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, New York (Online Presentation) (YouTube Clip)

December 2023: “Sound and Nature in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: Der Freischütz and the Romantic Science of Johann Wilhelm Ritter," Invited Lecture, Research Seminar, University of Manchester, Manchester, England (Virtual Zoom Session)

December 2023: “New Approaches in Phenomenology and Ontology: Ideas of Time, Space and Sound/Noise," Invited Lecture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky (Virtual Zoom Session)

April 2023: “Mozart's Don Giovanni, or, The Rake Punished,” Public Lecture,The Metropolitan Opera National Educators' Conference, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, New York (Online Presentation) (YouTube Clip)

March 2023: “On Science and Nature," Invited Lecture, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont

November 2022: “Medical Science and Female Madness in Lucia," Invited Lecture, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont

November 2022: “Verdi's Traviata and the Diseased Voice," Pre-Concert Lecture for Bennington College, The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center

October 2022: “Concert Hall Acoustics and the Sonic Ideal in Early Twentieth-Century America: The Coolidge Auditorium (1925),” Public Lecture, American Musicological Society-Library of Congress Lecture Series, Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Coolidge Auditorium, Washington, D.C.

October 2022: “Cherubini's Medea,” Public Lecture, The Metropolitan Opera: National Educators’ Conference, HD Live in Schools, The Rose Building, Lincoln Center

May 2022: "Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Nineteenth-Century Female Madness," The Metropolitan Opera Guild, New York, New York

May 2022: "The Certainty of Nature in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: Der Freischütz and the Romantic Science of Johann Wilhelm Ritter," Special Faculty Lacture: The Dante Seminar, Manhattan College, Rivedale, New York

April 2022: "Code-Switching in Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro," Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont (Virtual Presentation)

April 2022: ""Il dolce suono:" Lucia di Lammermoor in the Rust Belt," The Metropolitan Opera National Educators' Conference, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, New York (Online Presentation) (YouTube Clip)

April 2022: "Opera and the Identity of the Self," Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (Virtual Presentation)

April 2022: "The Certainty of Nature in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: Der Freischütz and the Romantic Science of Johann Wilhelm Ritter," The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case-Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

October 2021: "Fire Shut Up in My Bones: Opera and the Art of Narrative Interiority," The Metropolitan Opera, HD Live in Schools, Book Club, New York, New York (Online Live-Streaming Presentation) (YouTube Clip)

October 2021: "Excavating Eurydice: Breaking Open the Orpheus Myth," The Metropolitan Opera National Educators' Conference, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, New York (Online Presentation) (YouTube Clip)

January 2021: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Bride! The Romantic World of Lucia and the Science Behind Her Madness," The Metropolitan Opera National Educators' Conference, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, New York (Online Presentation) (YouTube Clip)

Professional Experience & Memberships

Current Board and Committee Assignments

Fall 2025-present: Member of the Editorial Board, Black Music, In Theory (University of Michigan Press)

Fall 2025-present: Treasurer, Phi Beta Kappa, Upsilon Greater New York Chapter

Fall 2024–Spring 2026: Kakos School of Arts and Sciences Faculty Representative to the Strategic Planning Committee, Manhattan University, Riverdale, New York

Fall 2022–Fall 2023: Chair of the Committee on the Annual Meeting (CAM) for the American Musicological Society's 89th Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, 9-12 November 2023

Fall 2021–Spring 2022: Member of the Committee on the Annual Meeting (CAM) for the American Musicological Society's 88th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, 10-13 November 2022, held jointly with the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Music Theory

Fall 2021–Spring 2022: Member of the Steering Committee for the "Theorizing African-American Music" Conference, Case Western-Reserve University, June 16-18, 2022

Fall 2020–present: Member of the Board of Directors, The Maxine Greene Institute

Fall 2020–Spring 2025: Arts Faculty Representative to the School of Liberal Arts Core Committee, Manhattan College, New York

Fall 2018–Spring 2022: Faculty Representative/Deputy to the Title IX Committee, Manhattan College, Riverdale, New York

Fall 2018–Spring 2022: Visual & Performing Arts Faculty Representative to the Robert Christen Fund, Manhattan College, Riverdale, New York

Fall 2018–Spring 2022: Alvin H. Johnson AMS (American Musicological Society) 50 Dissertation Fellowship Committee

Professional Memberships

• American Musicological Society (AMS)
• College Art Association (CAA)
• College Music Society (CMS)
• France: Musiques, Cultures, 1789-1918 (FMC)
• Goethe Society of North America (GSNA)
• International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM)
• The Royal Musical Association (RMS)
• The Centre for Ninteenth-Century Studies (CNCS)