Miloš Velimirović

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Miloš Velimirović (December 10, 1922 - April 18, 2008) was an American musicologist. He is considered an international expert in the areas of Byzantine music, the history of Slavonic music, and the history of Italian opera in the 18th century. Velimirović is the author of a chapter on Christian chant in Syria, Armenia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, and another on Byzantine chant, in The New Oxford History of Music, volume II, The Early Middle Ages to 1300, published in 1990.

Contents 1 Life 2 Fieldwork in Yugoslavia 3 Academic career 4 Recognition

[edit] Life

Velimirović was born in Belgrade, Serbia. He immigrated to the United States in 1951. He died in 2008, at the age of 87, in Bridgewater, Virginia.

[edit] Fieldwork in Yugoslavia

From 1950 to 1951 Velimirović worked with Harvard professor Albert Lord in collecting oral epic songs from singers in Yugoslavia. This fieldwork was a followup trip to the work done by another Harvard professor of Classics, Milman Parry, from 1933 to 1935. Lord himself had assisted Parry in the final stages of that trip. The material gathered in this trip is discussed most prominently in Lord's 1960 book, The Singer of Tales.

[edit] Academic career

Beginning in 1957 to 1969 Velimirović taught at Yale University. From 1969 to 1973, Velimirović was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at the University of Virginia from 1973 to 1993. He retired as a Professor Emeritus in 1993.

[edit] Recognition

In 2003, Velimirović was invited to a symposium at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. As a follow-up to this event, his Russian colleagues presented him with a festschrift volume entitled Byzantium and East Europe Liturgical and Musical Links in honor of Miloš Velimirović. The volume was originally written in Russian and included contributions by authors from nine countries. On October 18, 2004 the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, Greece awarded an honorary doctorate to Velimirović.