Rate My Professor Peter Tregear

Peter Tregear is a musicologist, author and performer who served as Professor and Head of the School of Music at the Australian National University from 2012 to 2015. He studied at the University of Melbourne before completing a PhD in Music at King’s College, University of Cambridge. In 2000 he was appointed a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he served as Lecturer and Director of Music. Tregear returned to Australia in 2006 as Dean of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and later held the position of Executive Director of the Academy of Performing Arts at Monash University. At ANU he was tasked with addressing challenges in the School of Music, including curriculum changes and staffing matters. His academic work focuses on music in its historical and cultural contexts, with particular emphasis on the musical culture of the Weimar Republic, the composer Ernst Krenek, and twentieth-century Australian music, including the works of Percy Grainger and Fritz Hart. He has published books such as Ernst Krenek and the Politics of Musical Style (2013) and Enlightenment or Entitlement: Rethinking Tertiary Music Education (2014), and co-authored Fritz Hart: An English Musical Romantic at the Ends of Empire (2024). Tregear has also contributed essays and reviews to outlets including The Conversation and Australian Book Review, and delivered public lectures on topics in music education and performance. He received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2020 for service to music education and professional societies, along with awards such as the Green Room Award for Best Conductor (Opera) in 2008. Following his time at ANU, Tregear held positions including a teaching fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Dean of St Mark’s College, Adelaide. He is currently a Principal Fellow of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.