Geoffrey BlockProfessor, music history  Phone: 253.879.3726
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Students who take courses from Professor Geoffrey Block know he has something substantive to teach them about the music they care about. "They know that I care deeply about their growth as listeners and writers and that I am willing to work hard to develop their potential." Professor Block emphasizes the fundamental principles of music and its history, the premises behind why we study what we study, and the biographical, social, and philosophical ideas behind the music. "I try to make difficult and provocative ideas accessible and interesting, and I try to convey my sense of joy and enthusiasm for music." Since he arrived at Puget Sound in 1980 Block has enjoyed teaching talented and motivated students attracted to a university which, unlike few institutions anywhere, offers a rigorous School of Music education within a varied liberal arts context. Professor Block earned a PhD and a MA from Harvard University and a BA from UCLA. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Bonn and has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Block is the author of Charles Ives: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1988), "Ives: Concord" Sonata (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Enchanted Evenings: the Broadway musical from "Show Boat" to Sondheim (Oxford University Press, 1997), and co-editor and a contributor to Charles Ives and the Classical Tradition (Yale University Press, 1996), and the composer of four musicals. He has also published articles and reviews on Mozart, Beethoven, Ives, jazz, and the Broadway musical in numerous essay collections, journals, and dictionaries (thirteen Broadway entries in New Grove Dictionary 2000) and is the author of Yale Broadway Masters: Richard Rodgers (Yale UP, 2003), the inaugural volume in a new series for which Block also serves as general editor. During the Rodgers centennial year in 2002 Block was the consultant and appeared on camera in the PBS documentary, Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds. He has also appeared frequently on national and international radio programs over National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and in newspaper interviews, including the Chicago Sun Times, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, and Dallas Morning News. Block also recently appeared as a talking head on the nationally syndicated PBS documentary “Heart & Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser and a BBC-4 broadcast on South Pacific hosted by Adrian Edwards. | 
