Ellen Exner

Historical Musicology
Harvard University

King Frederick the Great and the Origins of Modern Musical Life in Berlin (1732 to 1756)

Photo by Tony Rinaldo

Ellen Exner is a PhD candidate in the Harvard University Department of Music. Her dissertation explores the eighteenth-century foundations of modern-day Berlin’s rich musical culture, arguing that it originates with Frederick II “The Great” (1740–1786), the king of Prussia who was as passionate a musician as he was a soldier. Exner holds undergraduate degrees, cum laude, in both music history and Russian from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as well as a master’s degree in music history from Smith College. The Krupp Foundation, through the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, has generously supported Exner’s research.