Peter Kupfer

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Originally from Highland Park and a 1997 MYA alumnus, Peter Kupfer has been the director of theory at MYA since 2004. He received a B.A. in German Studies, Computer Science, and Music from Amherst College in 2001 and after spending a year in Berlin on an IIE-Fulbright Fellowship researching Wagner reception in the GDR, Peter entered the Ph.D. program in Musicology at the University of Chicago. At the university, Peter has taught a variety of undergraduate music history courses and spent half of 2008 researching in Russia on a Fulbright-Hayes grant for his dissertation on Soviet film musical comedies of the 1930s. Peter has performed as principal bassoonist with the Amherst College Orchestra, the Humboldt University Student Philharmonic, and the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, among others. With MYA, he has performed on concert tours to central Europe, Spain/Portugal, and China/Korea, and has taught music theory and history at the MYA Summer Music Festival since 2003. An avid chamber musician, Peter has also participated in the University of Chicago’s chamber music and new music programs.