Beverly and David B. Watts '55 have established a professorship in music. Photo by Brooks Kraft.

Beverly and David B. Watts '55 have established a professorship in music, benefiting a department that boasts a widely acclaimed cadre of faculty as well as increasing numbers of undergraduates enrolling in its courses each year.

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles said, "David and Beverly Watts are, with generosity and understanding, supporting the strength and range of music education at Harvard. A new professor will enhance our offerings both to our music concentrators and to everyone else, for music enriches the lives of us all."

The G. Gordon Watts Professorship is named for Dave Watts' father, who instilled in his children a love of music.

The elder Mr. Watts, who died earlier this month, was enormously gratified by his son's gesture. "Having a chair in my name at Harvard is about as great an honor as I'd ever expected," he said in an interview recently. He recalled his own grammar school teacher stimulating his interest in music, and looked forward to a new professorship encouraging more Harvard students to enter the field. The Department of Music currently has 20 faculty, 6 of whom hold named chairs.

Gordon Watts added, "Higher education needs all the support it can get and, knowing how much my son loves Harvard, I'm glad he saw fit to establish the chair."

Dave and Gordon Watts concurred in their estimation of the role music plays in a liberal education.

"What are you supposed to learn in college? How to think," said Dave Watts, adding, "And the study of music is particularly effective in developing students' abilities to examine, analyze, and ultimately understand a complex subject."

Many undergraduates are taking advantage of the opportunity to learn about music while studying at Harvard. For instance, more than 700 students enroll each term in First Nights: Five Premieres, a Core curriculum course taught by Professor of Music Thomas F. Kelly.

"Learning about music of different times and places changes the way a student hears and thinks well beyond the limits of a term's course," said Professor of Music Kay Kaufman Shelemay, who has served as department chair for five years. "Students are attracted to music classes because they realize how such courses enhance not only their education but also their whole lives."

Concentrators, numbering about fifty, follow an intensive course of study emphasizing a solid foundation in the theory, analysis, history, and literature of music. The department offers experience in musical performance and analysis through courses in performance practice taught by Robert D. Levin, the Dwight P. Robinson Jr. Professor of Music. The department also encourages participation in any of Harvard's many musical ensembles. Recent curricular additions include a range of courses in world music traditions, including the music of India, the Middle East, and Africa.

"We find that Harvard's ability to attract world-class talent engenders a richness of community that is unequaled at any other institution," said Dave Watts. "We want Harvard always to be a place where talented young musicians and leading music scholars can flourish and where people who have no musical background can be exposed to the field," he added.

Increasingly, the study of music at Harvard includes an interdisciplinary component, according to Shelemay. "We're seeing a pronounced increase in interdisciplinary interest among undergraduates, with a healthy number of concentrators combining work in music with a pursuit in another discipline. The department has responded in part by seeking to bridge boundaries between the different music subfields, bringing together, for instance, historical musicology and ethnomusicology in an ethnographic study of the lively world of early music performance. Other innovations include commissioning an original musical composition to celebrate the final 'first night' in Tom Kelly's popular Core course of that name. The composition curriculum, too, has recently been enhanced by new offerings for those interested in creating music but who are not concentrators, and further additions to the undergraduate composition curriculum are anticipated as well."

Bev Watts, whose mother was a concert pianist, shares her husband's enthusiastic appreciation of music. She sang with the Dedham (Mass.) Choral Society for more than 25 years, including concerts at Symphony Hall in Boston and in Taiwan.

Dave and Bev Watts, who divide their time between homes in Chatham, Mass., and St. Croix, will celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary this summer. They have three sons and four grandchildren. With his 45th reunion approaching in June 2000, Dave Watts wanted "to give something back to Harvard.

"I believe strongly in private education and I realize how costly it is," said Watts, who retired in 1997 from a successful career as managing director at Scudder Insurance Asset Management. "Those of us who want to sustain the preeminence of this institution must support it."

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences views establishing endowed chairs as a centerpiece of The University Campaign and has set a goal of 40 new professorships.