Biography

It was while taking a performance class as an undergraduate that Rachel S. Vandagriff knew she wanted to study music history. As a sophomore in college, she enrolled in an "atelier" course - four were offered every spring semester, each hosted by a practicing artist or artistic group. The class she took was led by the female singing group, Anonymous Four, that specialized in music of the Medieval and Renaissance period. This class, however, was about American sacred choral music, which this group was learning in preparation for a new recording and tour. With these four professional singers, she undertook the study of many different types of American choral traditions, ranging from the music sung in the Appalachian Mountains to African-American spirituals, to the music sung in the first settlements in Massachusetts. It was in this course that Vandagriff realized that studying music history also meant studying politics, class differences, literary traditions, and cultural values, and that the study of these different aspects of musical practice made the experience of perfecting a performance all the richer. Vandagriff went on to major in music at Princeton University, where she also played the harpsichord and was a member of the varsity crew team. She then received her MA-Ph.D. in music history at the University of California, Berkeley, where she specialized in twentieth century music history, both classical and popular. She is currently working on a book about private foundation funding of American classical music from the 1950s-1970s, which will be published by UC Press.