Faculty Profile for Dr. Ludim R Pedroza

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Dr. Ludim Pedroza is an associate professor in the School of Music; she works primarily in the areas of music history and Latin Music Studies, teaching the undergraduate history and analysis II survey and graduate courses in a variety of topics. Among these are the surveys History of Music in Latin America, and Music in the United States, as well as the specialized courses on the music and aesthetics of the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Romantic era.

Dr. Pedroza researches several interrelated topics: philosophy of performance, the histories of music institutions in the Americas, the crossroads between academic musical culture and popular music, and, the aesthetics of Latin American music. Her publications include the article “Merengue Meets the Symphony Orchestra” (American Music, 2014), which investigates the place of Latin American dance genres in the history of the Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl and analyzes the August 2012 joint concert of merengue composer-artist Juan Luis Guerra with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel’s baton. Her pieces on El Sistema examine the history of Venezuela’s renowned system of orchestral education and its complex cultural dialogues with popular music and the U.S. music academy. These include “Music as Life-Saving Project” (Symposium, 2014) and “Of Orchestras, Mythos, and the Idealization of Symphonic Practice” (Latin American Music Review, 2015). Her in-depth study of philosophy of performance—“Music as Communitas: Franz Liszt, Clara Schumann, and the Musical Work” (JMR, 2010)—probes the historical formation of the concept of the musical work in the hands of these two influential pianists and in relation to the powerful Romantic aesthetics of Idealism.

A native of Venezuela, Dr. Pedroza studied piano for ten years at the conservatory Vicente Emilio Sojo in the city of Barquisimeto. Consequently, she earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in piano performance from Antillean College (Puerto Rico) and West Texas A&M University, and the PhD in Fine Arts from Texas Tech University.

Research Interests

Philosophy of performance, the histories of music institutions in the Americas, the crossroads between academic musical culture and popular music, and, the aesthetics of Latin American music.