Frank Heidlberger has been professor of music theory at the College of Music of the University of North Texas since fall 2001. In 2006 he was promoted to full professor. Since 2012 he serves as Chair of the Division of Music History, Theory and Ethnomusicology. He received M.A. (1988), and Ph.D. (1993, 1998) degrees in historical musicology at Würzburg University. Heidlberger was research fellow and assistant professor at Würzburg University (1988-1999), and adjunct professor of music history and form analysis at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Würzburg. In 1999 he received the prestigious “Heisenberg” scholarship (DFG, German Research Council), which enabled him to focus on diverse musical source studies at the Library of Congress at Washington, D.C. and at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Heidlberger’s activities include several extensive research trips to Paris, Italy, London, Vienna and New York which had been supported by grants and awards from DAAD, DFG, Würzburg University and the German Department of External Affairs. He presented lectures in many European countries, the United States, Canada and Australia. In March 2017 he will be presenting at the conference of the International Musicological Society in Tokyo.

Heidlberger’s interests in research and teaching of Western Music History and Theory of the 16th through 20th centuries are particularly focused on analytical techniques in 19th-and 20th-century music, the history of music theory, text criticism, performance practice, opera studies, music aesthetics as well as music journalism and cultural studies. He received particular acclaim with his books on Carl Maria von Weber (1994), Hector Berlioz (1995), the Italian instrumental music of late 16th and early 17th centuries (2000) and Weber’s piano music (2001). In 2002 he edited a selection of Berlioz’s literary works, and in 2007 his new commented edition of Berlioz’s Memoirs in a new German translation was issued (both with Bärenreiter publisher in Kassel, Germany). He published numerous articles on Berlioz, Hindemith, Krenek, and 20th century music theory and criticism in journals and conference proceedings. A major essay on Berlioz’s “Religiosity” was published 2008 in a volume on Berlioz by the University of Rochester Press (Eastman Studies in Music). He published articles and reviews in numerous journals, anthologies and provided several entries for the new edition of “Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart” and “Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit.” Heidlberger also serves as the editor of “Theoria – Historical Aspects of Music Theory” having so far edited 14 volumes between 2003 and 2015.

Most recently, Heidlberger edited Carl Maria von Weber’s works for clarinet and orchestra in a volume of the “Carl Maria von Weber Gesamtausgabe” in 2011 (Schott, Mainz), and published a new Urtext edition of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Concert Pieces for clarinet, bassetthorn, and piano in 2015 (Henle, Munich). In 2016 his editions of the Weber clarinet concertos were published as pocket scores by Eulenburg (London). Currently he is working on an edition of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s first German opera (“Jephta’s Gelübde”), to be published by Ricordi in 2018, and he serves as the co-editor of an “Encyclopedia of the Orchestra,” for the German publisher Laaber), to be published in 2017/18. Other projects include a study on the development of the field of history of music theory since the 1980s.

He served as vice president of the International Carl Maria von Weber Society (1999-2008) and as board member of the Texas Society of Music Theory (2006-2010). In 2013 he was a Fellow in the UNT Faculty Administrative Leadership program. Heidlberger is also active as a clarinet and saxophone player with a special interest in jazz and contemporary music. In 2001 he recorded a CD with compositions for computer, synthesizers and clarinets/saxophones.