Theodore Cyrus Karp

Who is Theodore Cyrus Karp?

Theodore Cyrus Karp is an American musicologist. His principal area of study is saecular mediaeval monophony, especially the music of the trouvères. He is a major contributor in this area to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Born in New York, New York, he attended Queens College of the City University of New York, where he received his BA in 1947. He later attended the Juilliard School of Music and, from 1949 to 1950, the Catholic University of Leuven. He returned to New York University, where he studied under Curt Sachs and Gustave Reese. He received his PhD from New York in 1960. In 1963 he was taken on as a faculty member by the University of California at Davis and in 1971 became a music professor. He moved to Northwestern University in 1973, where he was dean of the department until 1988 and a professor until his retirement in 1996.

Besides trouvère monophony, Karp has written articles on the polyphony of the schools of Saint Martial's, Santiago de Compostela, and Notre Dame. He proposed new methods for the transcription of polyphony from the manuscripts. In his recent research Karp has studied the application of computers to his field.