David Nicholls is Professor of Music at the University of Southampton. He is the author of American Experimental Music, 1890-1940 (Cambridge, 1990) and contributing editor of The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium (1997), and The Cambridge Companion to John Cage (2002). He is also editor of the journal American Music.
'Unlike European musical history, the terra incognita of American music for non-specialists is the pre-modern era. The first half of The Cambridge History of American Music covers all aspects of this period and is worth the price of the whole.' Times Literary Supplement 'Enjoyable and non-technical, this fine volume has much to offer to all those interested in the highways and byways of the American musical landscape.' BBC Music Magazine '... copes with its subject's pluralism by employing many authorities, collated under a general editor, David Nicholls, whose approach is as far-sighted as it is intelligent.' Tempo 'The generally high quality of the essays as well as the admirable and unexpected liveliness of the book as a whole shows the virtue of Nicholls's approach.' Journal of the American Musicological Society