Kathryn Fenton

Dr. Kathryn M. Fenton earned her honors bachelor's degree at McGill University, her master's degree the University of Notre Dame and her PhD in musicology from The University of Western Ontario.

Fenton teaches a range of undergraduate and graduate music history courses, believing them to be an opportunity to give students a sense of how individual works fit into a network of historical and cultural contexts and to expand their musical literacy, and also as a chance to encourage students to develop their critical thinking and writing skills.

Prior to coming to SFA, Fenton taught at several universities in the United States and Canada, including Eastern Illinois University, Middle Tennessee State University, The University of Western Ontario and Wilfrid Laurier University.

Her research focuses on the music of the long nineteenth century, particularly French and Italian opera. She also studies musical life and institutions in the United States during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and the development of an American musical identity.

Her 2019 book, "Puccini and the American Musical Identity" published by Routledge, explores the intersection of nationalism, cosmopolitanism and nativism in the early New York City reception of Giacomo Puccini’s opera "La fanciulla del West ". Fenton has presented her research at local, national and international conferences in the fields of Musicology, Literature and American History, and contributed several articles on opera singers to the 2013 "Cambridge Verdi Encyclopedia. "