Rebecca Schmid, PhD, is an independent scholar, music writer and culture journalist based in Vienna. Her recently released book Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein: A Study of Influence (University of Rochester Press/Boydell & Brewer) explores how Kurt Weilll’s formal innovations helped lay the groundwork for the music theater works of Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein. She has moderated and written program notes for the Cleveland Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Verbier Festival and other organizations. 

Rebecca’s reviews and features have appeared in the Financial Times, Opernwelt, New York Times, Das Orchester, Gramophone, Berliner Morgenpost and many other publications. She has served on the media juries of the Hilde Zadek Voice Competition, the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and the conference Classical:NEXT.

As a lecturer, Rebecca has been invited to the University of Torino, Great American Songbook Foundation, and Donau-Universität Krems. Her work has been supported by the Austrian-American Fulbright Association, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, the American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Wirtschaftsagentur Wien.

A Swiss-American born in Paris, Rebecca holds a PhD in musicology and media studies from the Humboldt University of Berlin. She was also educated in music, comparative literature and arts journalism at Brown University, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University, the University of Vienna, and the Free University Berlin. She is currently on faculty at the Institute of European Studies (IES) and Webster Private University in Vienna.