Dr. Kristi Brown-Montesano approaches graduate seminars, adult-education classes, podcasts,  and pre-concert lectures with the same philosophy: that offering context—rigorously researched, provocative, and humanistic—empowers listeners and musicians to make their own meaningful connections to music. A faculty member at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music from 2003–22, she served as Chair of Music History and helped shape the institution’s degree programs. Today, Brown-Montesano is a Lecturer in Musicology at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as well as a popular public scholar, collaborating with the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and numerous other organizations.

Brown-Montesano broke new critical ground with her book Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas (University of California Press, 2007); the book’s feminist lens has attracted a growing audience of readers interested in the ethics of opera culture and production, prompting a new paperback edition in 2021. Other research areas include classical music in film, music and Sherlock Holmes, and popular reception of J.S. Bach in postwar America. For more information, visit kristibrownmontesano.com.