Paul R. Laird is an American musicologist

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

 at the University of Kansas

University of Kansas

The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...

 born in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

.

Laird holds a Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

. His research interests include the Spanish and Latin American villancico

Villancico

The villancico was a common poetic and musical form of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America popular from the late 15th to 18th centuries. With the decline in popularity of the villancicos in the 20th century, the term became reduced to mean merely "Christmas carol"...

, Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, the Broadway musical

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, and Baroque cello. He has taught at Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...

, State University of New York at Binghamton and the University of Denver

University of Denver

The University of Denver is currently ranked 82nd among all public and private "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in the 2012 rankings....

. Reviewer Alvaro Torrente described Laird's book Towards a History of the Spanish Villancico as "a milestone in the study of the villancico."

He directs the Instrumental Collegium Musicum and is active as a Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 cellist, performing with the Spencer Consort. In August 2002, he won a University of Kansas W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.

His 2004 book The Baroque Cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 Revival: An Oral History features interviews with more than 40 cellists and instrument makers. His current project include two studies of the musical theater of Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz may refer to:*Stephen Schwartz , American musical theater and film lyricist and composer*Stephen Suleyman Schwartz , journalist, political author, and historian...

.

Laird was the director of the Division of Musicology at the University of Kansas from 2000 until 2009. He has taught at the University of Kansas since 1994.

Publications

• Towards a History of the Spanish Villancico (Harmonie Park Press, 1997)
• Leonard Bernstein: A Guide to Research (Routledge, 2002)
• The Baroque Cello Revival: An Oral History (Scarecrow Press, 2004)
• Res musicae: Essays in Honor of James W. Pruett (Harmonie Park Press, 2001; co-editor)
• Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical (Scarecrow Press, 2007)
• On Bunker's Hill: Essays in Honor of J. Bunker Clark (Harmonie Park Press, 2007)
• The Cambridge Companion to the Musical (Cambridge University Press, 2002; co-editor with William A. Everett, second edition, 2008)
• Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms (Pendragon Press, 2010)

Laird has contributed to:

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.)
• Anuario musical
• Nassarre
• Revista de Musicología
• Early Music
• Australian Journal of Musicology
• CMS Symposium
• MLA Notes
• Historical Performance
• American Music
• American Record Guide
• Continuo Magazine