Tanti Auguri, Tony!

Abstract

The present issue of Journal of Musicology is the first of two containing articles from the ‘‘International Conference on the Italian Madrigal, 1550–1610, and 70th Birthday Celebration for Anthony Newcomb,’’ which was held at the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley, 9–10 November 2011. Generous funding for the conference was provided by the Dean of Humanities, the Department of Music, the Department of Italian Studies, the History of Art Department, and the Townsend Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley, and these sponsors should be thanked at the outset, for without their support, this remarkable gathering of scholars from across Europe and the United States would not have been possible. The foregoing list of backers will include surprises for those who do not know some details of Tony Newcomb’s long and distinguished career. A virtual California native, in 1949 Tony moved with his family from New York City to the Bay Area, where as a youngster he studied with Darius Milhaud, by then at Mills College. Not wanting to play favorites when it came time for university, he attended both Stanford University (1958–1959) and the University of California, Berkeley (BA 1962). He took his PhD at Princeton University in 1969, having already landed a premier position at Harvard University the year before, but by 1973 he was back at Berkeley, an institution to which he has remained staunchly loyal. Alongside his invaluable teaching and mentoring, his contributions to the university include helping to found the Italian Studies Department in 1984; serving as Dean of Arts and Humanities from 1990 to 1998, when he saw the College of Letters and Sciences through a period of great transformation; and chairing both the Department of Music and the History of Art Department. In addition to his national honors—including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992 and an honorary lifetime membership in the American 325