Paul Machlin is Arnold Bernhard Professor of Arts and Humanities at Colby. He has been Director of the Colby College Chorale since 1974, the longest serving director in its history.
Prof. Machlin has had an active conducting career, leading the Chorale in concerts throughout Europe, as well as in New England, New York, and California. He has also held an appointment as Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Keele in Staffordshire, England, where he directed the Keele Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus in a concert of music by two of 20th-century America's most characteristic and influential composers, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin.
A member of the Colby faculty for 37 years, Prof. Machlin holds the Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Music from Yale University, and Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees in music from the University of California at Berkeley. He studied conducting and piano performance at both universities, and later at the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to his conducting activities at Colby, Prof. Machlin teaches courses in 19th-century music, jazz history, African-American popular music, and American political music, and serves as music director for music theater productions. He has twice been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for his research on the African-American jazz pianist Thomas "Fats" Waller, and he is the author of two books about Waller: Stride: The Music of Fats Waller (1985), and Fats Waller: Performances In Transcription, a collection of transcriptions of several Waller solos and ensemble performances.
