Professor

Since 1976, Dr. Larry Lipkis has served as the Bertha Mae Starner ’27 and Jay F. Starner Professor of Music and Composer in Residence at Moravian University.  He directs the composition program, as well as the early music activities, which include the Collegium Musicum, a Renaissance music ensemble; the Monteverdi Ensemble, a madrigal ensemble; WIRE (Weird Instrument Renaissance Ensemble–featuring krummhorns and gemshorns), and the Baroque ensemble, an instrumental group that specializes in music of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Early Music program just celebrated its 50th anniversary in April, 2026 with a gala concert featuring approximately sixty current students and alumni.

Dr. Lipkis’ primary teaching load consists of courses in music theory, orchestration, form, and contemporary music–known collectively as “The Triple Threat.” He also gives private lessons and practicum courses in composition, orchestration and early music instruments.

Nearly every year, Dr. Lipkis serves as advisor to students engaged in Honors Projects and Independent Studies. Over his 50-year career at Moravian University, he has advised over two dozen students in wide ranging topics including:

• Lost Melodies: Tracing the Lives of Female Musicians in Auschwitz
• The Analysis and Orchestrations of Four Songs from the Late Romantic Art Song
• Repertory
• Jazz in the Terezin Concentration Camp
• A study of Shostakovitch’s Symphony no. 11
• A translation and analysis of a German-language monograph on the music of Alexander Scriabin
• Music in the Court of Emperor Maximillian I
• Mozart’s Women in Five Operas
• Three Shakespeare Kings: A Composition and Analysis
• The Role of Orchestras in the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps during the Holocaust
• Perceptions of Muslims in the Music of Renaissance Spain
• Nationalistic Traits in French and English Music of the Hundred Years War          
• The Composition and Analysis of my Clarinet Concerto, “Visions Unbroken,” and a Study of Twelve Other Clarinet Concerti
• “Writing for the Voice of God:” Composing a new work for trombone and wind ensembles, based upon selected Moravian Hymns
• La Culture Musicale du Salon Parisien: A Study of Selected Vocal Works by Elisabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre and Julie Pinel
• Kristen Weaver, Orchestration of Selected Movements from Das Jahr by Fanny Mendelssohn
• A Study of Five Arias by Giacomo Puccini
• “Schoolgirl,” an original composition and study of Noh drama
• “The Human Faith Melody and the Power of the Common Soul:” Charles Ives and the Concord Transcendentalists
• “My Crown, I Am:” Music for Three Shakespearean Kings
• “An Analysis and Arrangement of the Schübler chorales of J. S. Bach

In May of 2017 and 2019, Dr. Lipkis taught a course entitled “Music of Spain,” which culminated in a ten-day trip to Cordoba, Seville, and Granada to explore firsthand the rich musical culture of the Andalusian region of Spain. He regularly appears as a guest lecturer on the topic of “Music of Spain.

In positions related to service to the Lehigh Valley artistic community, Dr. Lipkis is a member of the Board of Managers of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (PA) and the creator and director of the Bach Chaconne Project (’15, ’17, ’22), a collaborative composition and performance workshop for talented middle school and high school students.  He has delivered presentations on the topic of “Bach and Rhetoric” and “Bach and Baroque Dance” at two NEH Summer Scholar Institutes in Germany, and a third one in Bethlehem.  He is also a Music Director at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival in Center Valley, PA, served as the Composition Competition Coordinator for the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. He directed “The Enigma Variations” in 2017 and “Pictures at an Exhibition (2018) in 2018” and currently is a member of the ASO’s Composer Consortium. He is a longtime Music Director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley.