Claudia Macdonald Papers, 1992-94, 1997-98, 2000, n.d.
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Administrative/Biographical History
Claudia Macdonald was a professor of musicology at Oberlin College and Conservatory for twenty-nine years. She was born in Portland, Oregon in April of 1948 to Ronald G. Macdonald and Sue C. Macdonald.
Professor Macdonald received her B.A. from Brown University in June of 1979. There she graduated magna cum laude with honors. She continued her postgraduate education at Brown University where she received her M.A. in August 1981. Macdonald was granted her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in December of 1986, where she specialized in eighteenth and nineteenth-century music history. While completing her education, she received significant postgraduate honors including grants from the International Board of Research and Exchanges, the American Philosophical Society, and from Oberlin College and Conservatory. She was awarded fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Association of University Women, and the University of Chicago Special Humanities Fellowship. Macdonald also received the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Fellowship.
Following the completion of her doctoral work at the University of Chicago in 1986, Professor Macdonald worked as a teaching associate at Boston University from 1986 to 1987. During that time, she taught at the Brown Learning Community from 1986 to 1989. In July of 1989, she began her career at Oberlin College as Assistant Professor of Musicology. In 1995, Macdonald was promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure. At Oberlin, she taught classes covering eighteenth through twenty-first century European and American music.
Professor Macdonald’s main area of study focused on the composer Robert Schumann. In 1983, she completed research on Schumann’s Piano Concerto in F major. Using this research, she reconstructed the first movement of the concerto from one of Schumann’s early sketchbooks. In 1992, pianist Sedmara Rutstein performed the reconstructed piece using Macdonald’s work. As a result of this work, Professor Macdonald received a National Endowment for the Humanities award to complete her book on Schumann in 1995. In 2005, her book titled Robert Schumann and the Piano Concerto was published by Routledge. Macdonald continued to write about Schumann and participated in panel discussions at the Schumann Festival held in October of 2010 at the University of Maryland. She presented a paper titled "Schumann and Piano Pedagogy."
In addition to her research on Schumann, Macdonald has written several articles about nineteenth-century music history that were published in The Journal of Musicology, Journal of the American Musicological Society, and Current Musicology. Macdonald was also an active mentor to Oberlin students and developed innovative teaching methods. In 2010, a Mellon Foundation Grant was awarded to The Five Colleges of Ohio to develop digital collections and to integrate digital resources into courses. As part of Oberlin’s portion of the grant, Professor Macdonald worked with Oberlin curator Barbara Lambert to digitize materials from the Frederick R. Selch Collection of American Music History in Oberlin’s Conservatory Library. These materials were used in Professor Macdonald’s course titled Hands-on Music History: America and Britain in the Selch Collection.
Professor Macdonald retired from Oberlin College and Conservatory in the spring of 2018. As Emerita Professor of Musicology, Macdonald continues to be active in her field. She participated in the Creative Arts & Music in the Shadow of War: Commemorating the Centenary of WWI event hosted at Oberlin College and Conservatory in the fall of 2018. During the festival, Macdonald gave a presentation titled “Music, Montana, and the Great War.” In that year, she donated books, scores, and recordings to the Oberlin Conservatory Library.
Claudia Macdonald was married to Ivan F. Waldbauer, who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1964. Waldbauer, a pianist and music historian, taught at Brown University for thirty years. He passed away in 2012. Macdonald has two children from a previous marriage, Martha and James Stapleton, and a stepdaughter, Katherine Waldbauer (Oberlin College class of 1977).
Sources Consulted
Claudia Macdonald Faculty File, Oberlin College Archives (RG 28).
“Library Receives Grant for Digital Collections.” Library Perspectives: A newsletter for the Friends of the Oberlin College Libraries, Fall 2010, Issue 42. http://www2.oberlin.edu/library/friends/perspectives/42.pdf
“More Digital Collections to be Integrated into Courses.” Library Perspectives: A newsletter for the Friends of the Oberlin College Libraries, Fall 2011, Issue 45. http://www2.oberlin.edu/library/friends/perspectives/45.pdf
"Music in and after the Great War." Events. Accessed November 6, 2019. https://www.oberlin.edu/events/creative_arts_and_music_during_the_shadow_of _war_commemorating_the_centenary_of_world_war_i-0
“New Faces.” The Observer: The Oberlin College Faculty and Staff Newspaper, October 12 1995, Vol. 17 No. 4. http://www2.oberlin.edu/library/news/observer/fall1995/observer_17_4.pdf
Oberlin College. “Beauty Amid the Brutality.” Events. Accessed November 6, 2019. https://www.oberlin.edu/news/beauty-amid-brutality
Oberlin College. “Panel Presentation: Commemorating the Centenary of World War I: "Music in and after the Great War." Events. Accessed November 6, 2019. https://www.oberlin.edu/events/creative_arts_and_music_during_the_shadow_of _war_commemorating_the_centenary_of_world_war_i-0
“Oberlin Music Scholar Wins Prestigious Competition.” Oberlin Conservatory Magazine, Spring 2001. http://www2.oberlin.edu/con/connews/spr01/accolades.html
“Recent Gifts.” Library Perspectives: A newsletter for the Friends of the Oberlin College Libraries, Fall 2018, Issue 59. http://www2.oberlin.edu/library/friends/perspectives/perspectives59.pdf
University of Maryland “Schumann Bicentennial Festival-Conference.” School of Music. Accessed November 6, 2019. http://www.music.umd.edu/special_programs/schumann_festival
Author: Riza Miklowski Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationOberlin College Archives
Alice L. Weiss Papers, RG 30/388
Faculty Files, Claudia Macdonald, RG 28/3
Frances Theresa Densmore Papers, RG 30/156
Frances Walker-Slocum Papers, RG 30/222
Inda Howland Papers, RG 30/320
Lucy Lee Lewis Papers, RG 30/256
Sylvia Olden Lee Papers, RG 30/369
The papers of Professor Claudia Macdonald document the Women in Music course she taught between 1992 and 2000. Macdonald worked as a professor of musicology at Oberlin College and Conservatory. As part of the course, students conducted interviews with local women about their background and career in music. The interviews focused on the interviewee’s experiences in the music field, their education and career path, their mentors and teachers, and the obstacles they faced as women. The students formulated the questions asked during the interviews. All of the women interviewed worked in Lorain or Cuyahoga County; most of them were employed in the Oberlin area. Macdonald taught the class for four years, in 1992, 1994, 1997, and 2000.
The collection contains information about the women interviewed, transcripts of the interviews, interview recordings, and permission forms. Also included are unpublished manuscripts relating to the Women in Music course.
The papers are arranged into three subgroups: Subgroup I. Interview Texts has two series: Series 1. Interview Information, and Series 2. Interview Transcripts and Permission Forms. Series 2 has two subseries: Subseries 1. Final Transcripts, and Subseries 2. Drafts of Transcripts. Subgroup II. Writings, holds a small number of unpublished writings. Subgroup III. Interview Recordings has two series: Series 1. Cassette Tapes, and Series 2. Videocassette Tapes.
Subgroup I. Interview Texts, the bulk of the papers, consists of biographical information about the interviewees. This includes a list of occupations for the 1992 interviewees and a small number of articles about several individuals. Interview transcripts from the 1992, 1994, 1997, and 2000 Women in Music courses make up the majority of this subgroup. Transcripts with corresponding recordings have been noted on the inventory. Most of the transcripts do not have permission forms; the presence of a permission form has been noted in the inventory.
Subgroup II. Writings, contains three unpublished manuscripts, including a final student paper, a manuscript about Alice Parker, a world-renowned composer and conductor, and a manuscript detailing themes found in the interviews. These materials are restricted from copying.
Subgroup III. Interview Recordings, contains a 1994 videocassette tape and seven cassette tapes of student interviews with women in music.