(b Mexico City, 14 Dec 1886; d Bridgewater, ct, 7 Feb 1979). American musicologist. His initial interest was in composition and conducting, and after graduating at Harvard he studied in Europe. He taught at Berkeley (1912-19), where he gave the first American courses in musicology in 1916, at the Institute of Musical Art, New York (1921-33), and at the New School for Social Research (1931-5), where, with Henry Cowell, he taught the first courses in ethnomusicology in the USA (1932). He was active in the organization and development of the Composers Collectives and worked as a music critic for several newspapers and journals, including the Daily Worker. He moved to Washington, dc, as music technical adviser in Roosevelt's Resettlement Administration (1935-8), deputy director of the Federal Music Project of the Works Progress Administration (1938-41) and chief of the music division of the Pan-American Union (1941-53). He returned to teaching in 1950 and was at the Institute of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles (1960-70), and lecturer at Harvard (from 1972). Seeger concentrated on general ethnomusicology and its theory and had influence as a largely prescriptive and philosophical writer. His lifelong interest in American folk music has been continued in the work of his children, the folksingers, songwriters and authors, Pete(r) R. Seeger (b 1919), Michael Seeger (b 1933) and Peggy Seeger (b 1935); his second wife was the composer
