Instructor Bio

Samuel Nemeth

Part-Time Instructor in the Department of Performing Arts – Music History & Culture

Education

  • B.A., The College of New Jersey
  • M.A., Penn State University
  • Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University

About

Samuel T. Nemeth is a Part-Time Instructor of Performing Arts at Ohio Wesleyan University where he teaches courses in music history, appreciation of music literature, and music in world cultures. Dr. Nemeth also serves as a Professional Writing Consultant in Ohio Wesleyan's Sagan Academic Resource Center. He completed his Ph.D. in Musicology at Case Western Reserve University during the Fall 2023 semester. Nemeth's dissertation, "'Ces Magnifiques Instruments': Sound, Power, and Romantic Orchestral Technologies, 1789–1869," explored military and orchestral soundworlds in late-eighteenth and early-to-mid nineteenth-century France, with a particular focus on the associations and meanings of instruments within those settings. Transcending geographic boundaries and historical eras, Nemeth's research interests lie at the intersections between orchestration, politics, warfare, and trauma. He investigates the sounds of power and the power of sound.

Dr. Nemeth has presented his research throughout the United States and Europe, including at three Annual Meetings of the American Musicological Society and at conferences of the Historic Brass Society (New York City), the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments and the Galpin Society (Oxford, U.K.), the France: Musiques, Cultures 1789–1918 network (Venice, Italy), and the International Society for the Research and Promotion of Wind Music (IGEB, Bolzano, Italy).

While at Case Western, Nemeth served as an Instructor of Record for the Department of Music's History of Rock and Roll course for three semesters, receiving the Graduate Dean's Instructional Excellence Award from the School of Graduate Studies in Spring 2023. He also served as President, Co-President, and Vice President of Events and Finance for the Music Graduate Student Association (MGSA). In Spring 2024, he received the Dr. Dorothy Pijan Student Leadership Award for Outstanding Graduate Organization Officer. Nemeth also held Research Assistantships in the Archives of The Cleveland Orchestra (2019–2020) and on the Education Team at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2020–2021).

In May 2018, Nemeth earned his Master of Arts in Music with Track in Musicology from the Pennsylvania State University. In 2016, Nemeth earned a Bachelor of Arts, graduating summa cum laude, from The College of New Jersey, with a double major in Music and American Political Communication (self-designed). At TCNJ, he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Nemeth remains an active trumpet player, participating in the Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Ohio Wesleyan and serving the congregation at Asbury United Methodist Church in Delaware. He has studied with Mr. Loren Toplitz of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the late Dr. Gary Fienberg at The College of New Jersey, and the late Mr. Christian Jaudes of the Juilliard School. At TCNJ, Nemeth served as the Founder and President of the TCNJ Pep Band and played in the Wind Ensemble for three years. At Penn State, Nemeth served as the Principal (Fall 2016) and Co-Principal (Spring 2018) trumpet in the Symphonic Band under the director of Professor Dennis Glocke.