Daniel E. Freeman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 April 1959 |
| Nationality | American |
Daniel Evan Freeman (born 27 April 1959) is an Americanmusicologist who specializes inEuropeanart music of the eighteenth century, in particular the musical culture of eighteenth-centuryPrague and theBohemian lands. He is also active as apianist andmusic editor.[1]
He was born inEverett, Washington, but raised inMerrill, Wisconsin, from early childhood.[2] He earned aB.Mus. degree in piano performance at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison in 1981 and also studied piano as a non-degree candidate atIndiana University withJames Tocco. He studied musicology at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (M.Mus, 1983,Ph.D., 1987), where his teachers includedBruno Nettl, John Walter Hill,Nicholas Temperley, and Herbert Kellman. His dissertation "The Opera Theater of Count Franz Anton von Sporck in Prague (1724–1735)" was revised and published in 1992 as the first monograph devoted to the musical cultural of eighteenth-century Prague or the Bohemian lands ever written in English. This work has been followed by two other books concerned with music-making in eighteenth-century Prague:Josef Mysliveček, "Il Boemo" (2009)[3] andMozart in Prague (2013). No other musicologist of any nationality has succeeded in completing three separate monographs on the same subject matter.
Freeman's biography of Josef Mysliveček is partially the basis (along with material from the 2015 documentary filmZpověď zapomenutého) of the screenplay for the filmIl Boemo (2022), written by Czech film directorPetr Václav. The film was selected by the Czech Republic as its entry forBest International Feature Film at the95th Academy Awards.
Freeman has taught music history at the University of Illinois, theUniversity of Southern California, and theUniversity of Minnesota, where he is a lecturer and has also served as a ballet accompanist for the dance department. Between 2002 and 2023, he appeared frequently as a resident associate of theSmithsonian Institution. His research has been supported by grants from theInternational Research & Exchanges Board, theAmerican Council of Learned Societies, theNewberry Library, and theNational Endowment for the Humanities.[4] Besides his monographs, Freeman has published essays on Italian opera of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, eighteenth-century keyboard music, and the music ofWolfgang Amadeus Mozart,Johann Sebastian Bach, the Bach sons,Antonio Vivaldi, andJosquin des Prez. He has also published editions of the music ofJosef Mysliveček andGiovanni Benedetto Platti and was a contributor to theNew Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992) and the revisedNew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001).
Freeman's essay "An 18th-Century Singer’s Commission of ‘Baggage’ Arias," originally published in the journalEarly Music in 1992, was re-printed as a classic study about baroque opera inOpera Remade, 1700–1750 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010).
In October 2022, Freeman was awarded a silver medal from the Faculty of Arts ofCharles University in Prague for his efforts in promoting the music of Czech composers outside of the Czech homelands.[5]
