Harvey Sachs

Writer and music historian Harvey Sachs’ twelve books have been published in a total of more than eighty editions and in seventeen languages. The most recent one, Schoenberg: Why He Matters, was on the New York Times list of “100 Notable Books of 2023,” and it was preceded by, among others, Ten Masterpieces of Music (2021), Toscanini: Musician of Conscience (2017), The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 (2010), Rubinstein: A Life (1995), Music in Fascist Italy (1987), and Virtuoso (1982). Mr. Sachs also edited and translated The Letters of Arturo Toscanini (2002) and co-authored Plácido Domingo’s My First Forty Years (1983) and Sir Georg Solti’s Memoirs (1997). He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement of London, and many other publications, as well as for the BBC, PBS, CBC, Arte, RAI, and other radio and television networks.

Mr. Sachs has lectured at universities and cultural institutions worldwide; has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as grants from the Canada Council; and holds an honorary doctorate from the Cleveland Institute of Music. From 2011 to 2013, he was the New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence.

Mr. Sachs, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, lived in Europe—mostly in Italy—for over 30 years. He is a frequent contributor to the Sunday cultural supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore, one of Italy’s leading newspapers, and is a former artistic director of Milan’s prestigious Società del Quartetto. In 2017 he received the title of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy) from President Sergio Mattarella for his contributions to Italian culture.

Mr. Sachs joined the Curtis faculty in 2009.