Chris Goertzen (1951–2025)

Dr. Chris Goertzen, Emeritus Professor of Musicology at the University of Southern Mississippi and an AFS member for over three decades, died on July 31, 2025 at the age of seventy-four after a brief illness.

Dr. Goertzen held the B.A. in art and music from Austin College and advanced degrees in musicology from the University of Illinois, with additional study at Schiller College (Berlin) and Harvard University. He studied both Western music history and ethnomusicology, and brought a world music perspective to teaching music history.

Dr. Goertzen was known not only for his deep dedication to students and teaching, but also for his wide-ranging contributions to the study of fiddling traditions, folk music, and cultural history. His legacy includes numerous influential works, mostly published by the University Press of Mississippi:

• Fiddling for Norway: Revival and Identity (1997)
• Southern Fiddlers and Fiddle Contests (2008)
• Made in Mexico: Tradition, Tourism, and Political Fermant in Oaxaca (2010)
• George P. Knauff’s Virginia Reels and the History of American Fiddling (2017)
• American Antebellum Fiddling (2020)
• Rugs, Guitars, and Fiddling: Intensification and the Rich Modern Lives of Traditional Arts (2022)
• Eck Robertson at the Crossroads of American Fiddling (2025)

He also played viola in a community orchestra, and steel-string guitar on his couch.

Read how Dr. Goertzen is remembered by his colleagues, friends, and students on the Facebook site set up by the University of Southern Mississippi School of Music; also learn more about Dr. Goertzen’s life on his obituary from Audubon Funeral Home.