Dr. Mackenzie Pierce

Biography

Mackenzie Pierce is a historian and music author whose work includes 'Sounds of Survival: Polish Music and the Holocaust,' published by the University of California Press in 2025. This book delves into the lives of Polish-Jewish composers during World War II and the Holocaust, highlighting their contributions to Poland's classical music scene and the musical responses to the suffering experienced by their community. Pierce's research interests encompass trauma studies, memory studies, music history, technology, musical nationalism, and the works of Fryderyk Chopin. Her scholarly endeavors have earned her fellowships from prestigious institutions such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, the Kościuszko Foundation, and the Beinecke Foundation. She actively shares her findings at annual meetings of the American Musicological Society and the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, as well as speaking at notable Polish cultural and academic institutions. Her publications have appeared in leading journals, and she has received accolades, including the Polish Studies Article Prize by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in 2023. Pierce holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Cornell University and a B.A. with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College, where she also studied cello performance at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Before joining the University of Michigan, she worked at the consulting firm EAB, advising senior university leadership on enrollment strategies and student borrowing issues.

Research Interests

Experience