Simon A. Morrison

Mostly I write about music, especially Russian music and ballet, and I’ve been involved in historically informed performances based on archival research all over the place: St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Paris, London, New York, Washington DC, Copenhagen, and (most extensively) Moscow. I've traveled to Bangkok, Beijing, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Montreal, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo to give invited lectures and graduate seminars. I divide my time between Princeton and Los Angeles. I’ve written Tchaikovsky's Empire (Yale, 2004), Mirror in the Sky: The Life and Music of Stevie Nicks (California, 2022), Roxy Music's Avalon (Bloomsbury, 2021), Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement (California, 2019), Bolshoi Confidential (Liveright, 2016), The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev (Houghton, 2013), The People’s Artist: Prokofiev’s Soviet Years (Oxford, 2009); and I’ve edited and contributed to Prokofiev and His World (Princeton, 2008) and, with Klara Moricz, Funeral Games: In Honor of Arthur Vincent Lourié (Oxford, 2014). Interested in elevating awareness of the people, processes, and historical context behind the music that moves us, I continue to write books and feature articles, giving interviews and lectures, and also assist in dramaturgy and production for ballet, theatre, and filmed productions.