Helena K. Spencer
Associate Professor
Dr. Helena Kopchick Spencer is Associate Professor of Music and Affiliated Faculty in Women's & Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Dr. Spencer teaches courses in music history and literature, research and writing in music, and applied bassoon; she is also a frequent guest speaker for Opera Wilmington and UNCW's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Dr. Spencer's publications include chapters in America in the French Imaginary, 1789–1914: Music, Revolution and Race (ed. Diana R. Hallman and César Leal, 2022); Meyerbeer and Grand Opéra from the July Monarchy to the Present (ed. Mark Everist, 2016); and La Sylphide: Paris 1832 and Beyond (ed. Marian Smith, 2012). She also authored the entry on the divertissement dansé in French grand opera for volume 2 of Hervé Lacombe’s Histoire de l’Opéra Français. Her current project examines the career of Wilmington-born soprano Caterina Jarboro; her work on Jarboro will appear in The 1898 Wilmington Massacre: Critical Explorations on Insurrection, Black Resilience, and Black Futures (ed. Tiffany Gilbert and Lynn Mollenauer) and Black Identities on the Operatic Stage (ed. Naomi André, Kristen Turner, and Elizabeth Keathley)
A contrabassoon specialist, Dr. Spencer held a three-year fellowship in contrabassoon at the Aspen Music Festival & School and performs regularly as third bassoon/contrabassoon with the Fayetteville Symphony, second bassoon/contrabassoon with the Long Bay Symphony, and guest contrabassoon with the Charleston Symphony. She previously held a position as interim third bassoon/contrabassoon with the Eugene (OR) Symphony and has performed as substitute contrabassoon with the Charlotte (NC), Oregon, and Colorado Symphonies.
Education
Ph.D. in Musicology, University of Oregon
M.M. in Bassoon Performance, University of Oregon
B.M. in Bassoon Performance, Cleveland Institute of Music
Research Interests
opera, ballet, and musical theatre
women in music
music, landscape, and place
local music history and soundscapes of Wilmington, NC