Biography
Music theorist/organist Diane Luchese joined the Towson University Music Theory faculty
in 1999. Prior to Towson, she taught at the Ohio State University, Roosevelt University
in Chicago, and the New England Conservatory. She also held positions as an organist/choir
master in the New York, Boston, and Chicago metropolitan areas, and currently freelances
as a church organist in the Baltimore area.
Her research interests include counterpoint; pedagogy as informed by cognition research;
rhythm, time and motion; and the music of Bach, Hildegard, Messiaen, and Ligeti. Accordingly,
she has presented papers at numerous conferences, which include the First International
Congress on Messiaen Studies, the Making Time in Music International Conference at Oxford University, the International Society of Hildegard
von Bingen Studies, the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Society for
Music Theory, the Symposium on Music and Nature, and the Bridges International Conference.
Luchese contributed a chapter to Olivier Messiaen: The Centenary Papers (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), and her articles have been published in Sonus and The American Organist. Luchese performs recitals throughout the northeast, and especially enjoys performing
early and contemporary works. In 2009 she performed John Cage’s Organ2/ASLSP in a 15-hour uninterrupted performance at Towson University, and since has performed
slightly shorter realizations of this work at Leeds Cathedral for the Performing Indeterminacy Conference, and at the nief-norf Research Summit in 2012. Her recording, Light and Dark and In Between (Raven label), features contemporary music played on organs in Baltimore. In 2017
Luchese received a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for classical
performance. She is currently researching the use of the pipe organ in jazz and rock
contexts.
Luchese earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Northwestern University, Master of Music degrees from the New England Conservatory in music theory and in organ performance, and a Bachelor of Music in organ from the Manhattan School of Music, where she was awarded the Bronson Ragan Memorial Award for Excellence in Organ. Her organ teachers include Yuko Hayashi and Frederick Swann. She also studied composition with M. William Karlins and Robert Cogan.