Silke Leopold

Silke Leopold (born 1948) studied musicology, theatre studies, Romance studies and literature in Hamburg and Rome. From 1975 to 1978, she held a fellowship at the music department of the German Historical Institute in Rome. As an assistant to Carl Dahlhaus, she taught at the Technical University of Berlin and as a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. After holding professorships in Paderborn and Detmold, she was professor and director of the Department of Musicology at Heidelberg University from 1996 to 2014; from 2001 to 2007, she also served as vice-rector for teaching and learning. Her research focused on music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, opera and historically informed performance practice.