Musical Arts Center, MC426C
Education
- Ph.D., University of Cincinnati, 2014
- M.M., University of Cincinnati, 2010
- B.M., University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2005
Tom Kernan is associate dean for artistic operations at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he leads the team that delivers the school’s more than 1,400 performances each year. In this role he is the General Director of the Opera and Ballet Theater as well as oversees the planning and support for the work of the faculty, staff, and students in orchestras, bands, choruses, chamber music, musical theatre, contemporary dance, and jazz.
A musicologist, teacher, and arts administrator, prior to his appointment at Indiana University, Kernan served for 10 years at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, where he was associate professor of musicology and held leadership roles as program director, College Council chair, University Senate chair, Music Conservatory director, and associate dean of the college.
As a scholar of American music, Kernan’s research has addressed the musical memorialization of Abraham Lincoln, from his death in 1865 to the present, as well as the history of concert audiences’ musical and extra-musical experiences. His Lincoln research earned the 2016 Hay-Nicolay Prize from the Abraham Lincoln Association for its advancement of the national understanding of Lincoln and Civil War legacies. His work on American concert hall experiences earned the 2019 Newberry Library Rudolph Ganz Fellowship in American Music.
Kernan’s award-winning teaching was recognized by the University of Cincinnati’s College- Conservatory of Music, where he was its Outstanding Graduate Student Teacher, and by Roosevelt University, where he earned the institution’s highest award for teaching, the Provost’s Award for Innovative Curricular Design.
He resides in Bloomington with his spouse, culinary historian Sarah Peters Kernan, and their three children.