Dr. David Metzer, Chair of the Musicology Division and Professor of Musicology at the UBC School of Music, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), the country’s highest honour in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
He joins Dr. Stan Floresco (Department of Psychology) as one of two Faculty of Arts members named to the RSC’s Class of 2026. The RSC will formally induct the new Fellows at its annual Celebration of Excellence and Engagement in Ottawa this November.
A historian who follows the music wherever it leads
Dr. Metzer is a historian who examines a wide range of music—classical, popular, blues, and jazz—across the 20th and 21st centuries. His four monographs move between subjects that might, at first glance, seem unrelated.
“A colleague once joked that when it comes to my research, the road takes many sharp turns, going from complex modernist pieces in one book to Céline Dion songs in another and hip hop songs about mass incarceration in my latest book,” Dr. Metzer says. “The road, though, is quite smooth, as recurring interests lead me from one topic to another.”
Those recurring interests centre on the emotional experiences music creates and how it creates them. “Everything from the austere mournfulness in modernist laments to the emotional adrenaline rush in Céline Dion’s power ballads,” he says. He has also traced how musicians respond to pressing social issues, including how artists in hip hop and other genres have engaged with the inequalities embedded in incarceration.
Research with community impact
Dr. Metzer’s interest in the social role of music extends beyond his published work. Together with Assistant Professor Ryan Davis, he is helping establish a role for the School of Music at the UBC Learning Exchange, an educational hub in the Downtown Eastside.
“My interest in the social role of music extends to the work that Ryan Davis and I have been doing with the UBC Learning Exchange,” Dr. Metzer says. “We are establishing a role for the School of Music in the important work being done by the Learning Exchange.”
A career spent championing Canadian music
Throughout his career, Dr. Metzer has returned repeatedly to the work of Canadian musicians, including John Oswald, Claude Vivier, Céline Dion, Willie Dunn, and Cheryl L’Hirondelle—scholarship that has helped bring Canadian musical voices to wider audiences.
“Focused on fundamental aspects of music—its emotional and social impact—my work addresses issues that interest a wide range of readers and listeners,” Dr. Metzer says.
Please join the School of Music in congratulating Dr. Metzer on this richly-deserved honour.
Read the Faculty of Arts announcement and UBC’s full list of 2026 RSC Fellows and Members.
Fellows are elected by their peers in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement and the impact of their work on their field and on Canadian public life.
