Charles Francis Leinberger, Ph.D.
Charles Francis Leinberger joined the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso in the fall of 1998. He is a Professor of Music and teaches classes in music theory, film musicology, form and analysis, orchestration, eighteenth-century counterpoint, pedagogy of music theory, and seminars on Ennio Morricone's film music and Mozart concertos and symphonies. He has also taught classes in music appreciation, music fundamentals, aural skills, and graduate music theory.
He has published an article on Max Steiner in The Journal of Film Music, and has presented research papers on Max Steiner at meetings of the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory at the University of Arizona and at the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival. He is the author of Ennio Morricone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Film Score Guide, edited by Kate Daubney and published by Scarecrow Press. He is a contributing author to the anthology Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier, compiled and edited by Kathryn Kalinak and published by Routledge. Recently, he published an article on the use of the solo trumpet in the soundtrack of western films in the International Trumpet Guild Journal, and presented a lecture on this topic at the ITG Conference in 2016. He has also lectured on the music of Morricone at the Manhattan School of Music, Northwestern University, the University of Leeds, a meeting of the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, the Hawaii University International Conference on the Arts and Humanities, a meeting of the Texas Society for Music Theory, a meeting of Music Theory Midwest, and Music and the Moving Image VIII. His book reviews have appeared in The Journal of Film Music and Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. He has also reviewed books for Elsevier, Norton, Oxford University Press, Pearson, Prentice-Hall, Thomson-Schirmer, and the Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. He served on a committee to design the Introduction to Music exam for Excelsior College, an institution specializing in distance learning. Since 2012, He has been a reader for the Advanced Placement Music Theory Exam.
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he began his music studies playing trumpet in the Cathedral Latin School band. While in Cleveland, he studied trumpet with Joseph Hruby.
He earned his Master of Music degree in music theory from the University of Miami. During his two years at U of M, he was fortunate enough to study trumpet with Gilbert Johnson. His music theory teachers at U of M were Dr. Fred Coulter, and Dr. Dennis Kam. Before beginning his doctoral studies, he was out of school for several years, during which time he spent one year as a member of the faculty of the University of Miami. He also worked in the retail record-and-tape business in Miami.
After moving to Seattle, Washington, he studied trumpet with Charles Butler and was a member of the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to his purely musical interests, he also spent a few years as a club deejay and radio personality in Seattle.
Charles earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in music theory with minors in trumpet performance and media arts from the University of Arizona, where he was also a teaching assistant. During his doctoral program at U of A, he studied trumpet with Richard Peters and Ed Reid. His music theory teachers at U of A were Dr. Robert Clifford, Dr. J. Timothy Kolosick, and Dr. Edward Murphy. While in Tucson, he was principal trumpet with the Catalina Chamber Orchestra and spent one season as principal trumpet with the Arizona Opera Orchestra. He also performed with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and was a member of the Heavy Metal Brass Quintet. In addition, he was a member of the faculty of Mesa Community College (Mesa, Arizona) for one year.
In 1998, Charles and his wife moved to El Paso, Texas, where Charles joined the music faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso. He has been a member of the Quintessential Brass and has also performed with the Edge of Texas Concert Band, the El Paso Chorale, the El Paso Opera Orchestra, the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, the El Paso Wind Symphony, the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra, the NMSU Choirs, the Southwest Chamber Consortium, the UTEP Dinner Theater, and the UTEP Trumpet Ensemble. He was recently a member of Windy City, El Paso's tribute band to Chicago. He performs regularly at Saint Luke Catholic Church and with the El Paso Diocesan Choir.
He is a member of the College Music Society, the International Trumpet Guild, the Society for Music Theory, and the Texas Society for Music Theory. He currently serves on the Executive Board of the Texas Society for Music Theory and recently hosted the 37th Annual Meeting of that organization at UTEP.
Contact Info
Department of Music
Email: charlesl@utep.edu
Office: FFA M301
Office Phone: (915) 747-7800
Dr. Leinberger's Music Web Site
"If you choose a path that leads to success, and you pursue it passionately and methodically every day, expect nothing less. If you choose a path that leads to failure, expect nothing more." - C.F.L.
