The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) today announces the appointment of Rachel Vandagriff to its faculty. As Professor of Music History and Literature, Vandagriff will teach a mix of survey courses on topics including 20th- and 21st-century music and other stylistic periods.

“Rachel Vandagriff's research in and engagement with music from the 20th and 21st centuries will be a fantastic addition to our strong music history department,” says SFCM Provost and Dean Kate Sheeran. “Her teaching experience, along with her scholarship in everything from classical to electronic music make her a great fit for SFCM's innovative curriculum and creative student body.”

“Being a faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music is a dream come true,” says Vandagriff. “I am excited to become part of this community and to work with the bright, talented, and curious students who come to SFCM. I look forward to helping these students learn how to be musicians in, for, and of the 21st century. I am grateful and thrilled for this opportunity and can't wait to get started.”

Vandagriff has presented her work at the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society and the Society for American Music. She conducted and published over twenty interviews with living composers and music theorists for the 50th anniversary issue of Perspectives of New Music (vol.60, 2012). She has also presented and published work on the music of Milton Babbitt, the creation of the Ph.D. degree in music composition, and the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Vandagriff grew up in Oakland and Berkeley, CA, received her BA in Music from Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude, and received her Ph.D. in Music from the University of California, Berkeley, where she wrote her dissertation "The History and Impact of the Fromm Music Foundation, 1952-1983," which she is currently turning into a book.