Daniel Beller-McKenna teaches music history at the University of New Hampshire where he has been on the faculty since 1998. Previously he served on the faculty of the University of South Carolina. He holds degrees in Journalism and Music from Temple University in Philadelphia where he studied classical guitar and music history, and from Harvard University where he wrote his dissertation on Brahms’s later settings of biblical texts. His research has continued to focus on Brahms, including the 2004 monograph Brahms and the German Spirit, which examines Brahms and nationalism. Most recently he has presented papers on the reception of Brahms’s music in France, and the use of his music in French literature and film in the mid-twentieth century. His articles on Brahms have appeared in 19th Century Music, The Journal of Musicology, Music & Letters, and other scholarly journals. Additionally he has published articles on John Lennon and the Beatles. He is co-editor of For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt (2022). Beller-McKenna serves on the Board of Directors of the American Brahms Society, of which he was President from 2001-2007, and has served as President of the New England Chapter and on various committees of the American Musicological Society. He is active as a steel guitarist in northern New England.
