Don Michael Randel

Don Michael Randel "is a musicologist who attended Princeton University, where he received bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in music. His scholarly specialty is the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Spain and France.  As a music historian, Mr. Randel is widely published, particularly on medieval liturgical chant, and he has also written on such varied topics as Arabic music theory, Latin American popular music, and 15th century French music and poetry.

"In 1968, Mr. Randel joined the Cornell University faculty in the department of music. He served for 32 years as a member of Cornell’s faculty, where he was also department chair, vice-provost, and associate dean and then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  He became provost of Cornell University in 1995.

"From July 2000 until he joined the Foundation in July 2006, Mr. Randel held the position of President of the University of Chicago. There he led efforts to strengthen the humanities and the arts on campus, as well as a broad range of interactions with the City of Chicago and a further strengthening of the University’s programs in the physical and biomedical sciences and its relationship with the Argonne National Laboratory.  He also led the University’s campaign for $2 billion, the largest in the University’s history.

"Mr. Randel served as the editor of the Journal of the American Musicology Society. He is also editor of the Harvard Dictionary of Music 4th ed., published in 2003, the Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, published in 1996, and the Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians, published in 1999." 

"Don Randel is a musicologist, the fifth president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a member of the editorial board of Encyclopaedia Britannica."


 * Advisory Board, Arcadia Fund
 * Board of Governors, Partnership for Public Service
 * Trustee, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
 * Trustee, Rockefeller University
 * Editorial Advisory Board, Encyclopedia Britannica
 * Director (2008), Local Initiatives Support Corporation