Noted music theorist Allen Forte (center) poses with Leon Plantinga, chair of the Department of Music, and President Richard C. Levin at an event celebrating the newly endowed professorship in Forte's honor.

Allen Forte Chair honors renowned Yale musical theorist

A generous gift to the University has established an endowed professorship in honor of Yale faculty member Allen Forte, a leading music theorist. The Allen Forte Chair in Music Theory will be in the Department of Music, where Forte has taught since 1959. Forte, the Battell Professor of the Theory of Music, is a specialist in 20th-century atonal music, music analysis by Schenkerian methods and the American popular ballad. "We are enormously grateful for this thoughtful and generous gift to establish the Allen Forte Chair in Music Theory," says President Richard C. Levin. "For over 40 years, Professor Forte has been devoted to the study and teaching of the theory of music, covering topics ranging from harmonic composition to atonality to the classic American popular ballad. The new professorship in his name recognizes his pioneering role as a music theorist and his accomplishments in training future generations in the field." The donors, who wish to remain anonymous, add: "Professor Forte has had an immeasurable impact on our lives and on the field of music mheory. It is our pleasure to express our heartfelt thanks, to honor his seminal contributions to the field and to strengthen Yale's programs in the field of music by making a gift to Yale to name the Allen Forte Professorship in Music Theory." Forte's 11 books include "Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice" (1962), which was published in three editions before it was republished in 1995; "Contemporary Tone-Structures"; "The Structure of Atonal Music"; "The Harmonic Organization of The Rite of Spring"; "Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis" (with Steven E. Gilbert); "The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era 1924-1950," which won the Wallace Berry Book Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory; and "The Atonal Music of Anton Webern." His latest book, "Listening to Classic American Popular Songs," will be released by Yale University Press next year. A graduate of Columbia University, where he earned both his B.A. and M.A. degrees, Forte joined the Yale faculty as an instructor in music theory after teaching at the Columbia University Teachers College. He became a full professor in 1968 and assumed the Battell Professorship in 1991. He was director of graduate studies from 1970 to 1977 and director of undergraduate studies from 1995 to 1996. Since 1980, Forte has been the general editor of the Yale University Press series "Composers of the Twentieth Century." He served for seven years as the editor of the Journal of Music Theory, and is currently on the advisory boards of The Musical Quarterly and Music Analysis. He was the founding president of the Society for Music Theory. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Forte has received numerous other honors, including fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Society for Music Theory awarded him its First Lifetime Membership in 1995, and the Eastman School of Music gave him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 1978. A 1997 book of essays titled "Music Theory in Concept and Practice," edited by David Beach, Jonathan Bernard and James Baker, was dedicated to the Yale professor. Forte also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Yale Summer School of Music and Art and the Eastman School of Music. He was a visiting lecturer at Columbia University and the University of British Columbia, and he served on four different occasions as director of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers. At Yale, Forte is currently teaching a course on George Gershwin's music and lyrics and another on Schenkerian analysis. 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