College of Music

April L. Prince received her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia and her Ph.D in musicology from the University of Texas at Austin under the late K.M Knittel.

Grounded in cultural and gender studies, Prince’s research focuses on 19^th-century German pianism—as it relates to iconography, the serious music aesthetic, and reception history.  In particular, her work considers the tensions (and fractures) between the private (feminine) and public (masculine) musical worlds, especially as exemplified in portraiture and programmatic choices of professional pianists.  She has presented portions of this work at national and regional conferences of the AMS and the North American Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music.

Having grown up in the deep, rural South (Ephesus, Georgia—population 388), Prince’s recent scholarly interests center on southern cultural and musical identity.  Examining the songs of early 20^th-century country music and blues women, her analyses consider how these singers defined and celebrated their own notions of southernness and self.  Indeed, these underexplored songs weave the story of a South both responding to and sometimes reinforcing national (media-driven) perceptions, and yet ever-struggling to define and come to terms with its past and future.  In support of this project, Prince received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Visiting Scholar Program, funding archival work at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives.  She has also presented parts of this project at the AMS-Southern Regional Conference and Delta State University’s International Conference on the Blues.

Before coming to UNT, Prince designed and taught courses across the general education curriculum at Loyola University New Orleans.  Focusing on music as it relates to cultural context, her classes included topics on gender and sexuality, American popular music, and music outside the traditional canon.  Interested in innovative pedagogical methods, Prince chaired a panel, "But I Can't Sing!": Teaching Music History through Creative Assignments, at the CMS-Southern Regional Conference, which focused on the use of interdisciplinary, creative assignments in non-major teaching.