Paul Abdullah

A fifth year PhD student, my primary research interests include European opera in the long nineteenth century, opera and cultural exchange, and opera and technology. My dissertation project (Opera, Shakespeare, and European Identity 1790-1870) examines the significant contribution to the exchange of literary and musical aesthetics and politics made by Shakespeare-inspired operas in the romantic era. I have presented my work at national and chapter meetings of the American Musicological Society, as well as the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Association. My work has been supported by the American Musicological Society’s Holmes/d’Accone travel fund, CWRU’S Baker-Nord Humanities Center, a CWRU Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowship, and a summer research grant at the Library of Congress.

As a performer, I focus on collaboration with singers and have coached or conducted twenty different opera productions at the college level in the U.S. and in Europe, including with the University of Houston’s Moore’s Opera Center, Lone Star Lyric Theater, The Austrian-American Mozart Academy, and the Franco-American Vocal Academy. While at Case, I have enjoyed the opportunity to explore historical keyboards and have performed with our Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Ensembles on both harpsichord and fortepiano. I received my Bachelor and Masters degrees in Piano Performance respectively from Oakland University and the University of Houston.

Beyond opera, I also have a passion for great singing in any genre, and I have enjoyed teaching popular/vernacular music courses at Case, including “Composers of the Musical on Stage and Screen” and “History of Rock and Roll.” In the spring of 2019, I am teaching the music history survey at Oakland University in Michigan.