Michael Dodds is associate professor of Music History at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Director of Traditional Worship & Music at First Presbyterian Church of Winston Salem. Dodds completed his Ph.D. in musicology at the Eastman School of Music and his B.Mus. in violin performance at the Wheaton College Conservatory.

His book project for the fellowship year, From Modes to Keys: The Organ in Baroque Liturgy, proposes a model clarifying the complex changes in how musicians conceptualized tonal space between the 16th and 18th centuries. In recent papers and articles, Dodds has explored topics including contexts and strategies for keyboard improvisation in Italian Office liturgy; transposition in Counter-Reformation vocal polyphony; the symbolism of musical canons in Seicento paintings; fugal procedures in Bach Passion choruses; implicit epistemologies in modal theory; and the mapping and navigation of tonal space in the Age of Discovery.

International experiences have figured prominently in Dodds’ life: he grew up in the rainforest of Peru, worked for the U.N. in Vienna, and has conducted extensive research in Italy. Dodds is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including Fulbright and NEH research fellowships and a UNCSA Excellence in Teaching Award. Dodds’ work as a composer is the subject of a forthcoming documentary, Blessed Unrest.