Rebecca Schmid, PhD, profits from a two-track career as a musicologist and culture journalist. Her book Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein: A Study of Influence (University of Rochester Press/Boydell & Brewer) explores how Kurt Weill’s formal innovations helped lay the groundwork for the music theater works of Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein. She has lectured at the University of Performing Arts Vienna, University of Torino, Great American Songbook Foundation, Bauhaus Archiv and Donau-Universität Krems.

Rebecca’s reviews and features have appeared in the Financial Times, Opernwelt, New York Times, das Orchester, Gramophone, Berliner Morgenpost and many other publications. She has served on the media juries of the Hilde Zadek Voice Competition, the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and the conference Classical:NEXT. Moderation and program notes for such organizations as the Cleveland Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival and  Spoleto Festival USA.

Born in Paris and raised with an equal footing in American and European culture, Rebecca holds a PhD in musicology and media studies from the Humboldt University of Berlin; a B.A. in music and comparative literature from Brown University; and an M.A. in arts journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University. She was further educated at the University of Vienna and the Free University Berlin, with grant support from the Austrian-American Fulbright Association, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Wirtschaftsagentur Wien. Rebecca is a faculty member at Webster Vienna Private University.