Stephen Rumph

Stephen Rumph specializes in Beethoven, Mozart, music and politics, opera, and semiotics. He took his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, writing a Beethoven dissertation with Joseph Kerman. He joined the UW School of Music faculty in 2002.

Rumph’s book Beethoven After Napoleon: Political Romanticism in the Late Works was published in 2004 by University of California Press. It offers a political interpretation of late Beethoven illuminated by the writings of the German Romantics. A new book, Mozart and Enlightenment Semiotics, is in production with UC Press. It pioneers a “historically-informed” semiotics of music for Mozart, based upon eighteenth-century sign and language theory.

Rumph has published articles in the Journal of the Royal Music Association, Music and Letters, Beethoven Forum, 19th-Century Music, Eighteenth-Century Music, and The Journal of Musicology. He serves as Reviews Editor for Beethoven Forum.

Rumph also sings professionally as a lyric tenor. He has sung leading roles with Tacoma Opera, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, Skagit Valley Opera, Northwest Sinfonietta, Walla Walla Symphony, the Northwest Mahler Fest, and other opera companies and orchestras through Seattle and the Bay Area. His resumé can be found at http://northwestartists.org.

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