Peter Bloom

Peter Bloom is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

He specializes in European composers of the 19th century, has published on Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, and Claude Debussy, but is best known for his books, editions, and essays on the life and work of Hector Berlioz.

From 1997 to 2003 he was a member of the Paris-based Comité international Hector Berlioz that sponsored five international conferences to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the composer's birth and among other things attempted to have Berlioz's remains transferred from the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris to the Panthéon, which honors "les grands hommes" of the French Nation.

Then-President of France Jacques Chirac, after initially agreeing to the transfer, changed his mind.

Peter Bloom Smith College faculty biography and list of publications: http://www.smith.edu/music/faculty_bloom.php