Paul du Quenoy

Paul du Quenoy is an American publisher, critic, and historian. He is president and CEO of Academica Press, an international non-fiction publisher based in Washington, D.C., and London, and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.

Background

Paul du Quenoy graduated from George Washington University and received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He has taught at universities and was a Fulbright scholar in Russia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Historical Society.

Academic work

Du Quenoy's first book, Stage Fright: Politics and the Performing Arts in Late Imperial Russia, was published in 2009. The book attacks Soviet arguments and demonstrates the vital commercial elements in Russian culture, which du Quenoy argues was relatively free before the Revolution of 1917. According to the Modern Language Review Stage Fright offers "a detailed counter-argument to teleological readings of the cultural and political situation in late imperial Russia." The book was commended by Princeton University Russia scholar Caryl Emerson for "its devastating command of the historical record." Professor E. Anthony Swift of the University of Essex described it as an "important new contribution to the field" that "should be read by anyone interested in the relationship of politics and the arts."

Du Quenoy subsequently published Wagner and the French Muse: Music, Society, and Nation in Modern France (2011), an extensively documented narrative of the German composer Richard Wagner's reception in France. Novelist, poet, and Welsh National Opera dramaturg Simon Rees's review in Opera magazine called it a "rattling good read" and "well-written analysis." His third book, Alexander Serov and the Birth of the Russian Modern (2016, rev. 2nd edition 2022) was described by Russian Review as a "new angle" with "views that allow for a reexamination of some of the century's biggest controversies." Music and Letters described it as "ably written, balanced, highly detailed, and documented with care ... As such it outdoes existing Russian efforts." He has also published a volume of selected music criticism. The Royal Opera's chorus director William Spaulding hailed it as "knowledgeable and accessible," adding that "Paul du Quenoy's brilliant reviews reveal the timelessness of opera's core values."

Writing

Du Quenoy contributes criticism and commentary on art, society, and politics to a variety of publications. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, New York Post, The Daily Telegraph, Washington Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Washington Examiner, The Spectator, New Criterion, Musical America, Tablet, City Journal, Chronicles (magazine), American Conservative, The Critic, The European Conservative, New York Classical Review, and various academic journals, including the American Historical Review, Journal of Modern History, International History Review, and Russian Review. His music criticism has included bylines from New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Zürich, San Francisco, Rome, Milan, Venice, Naples, Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Barcelona, Santa Fe, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Houston, Miami, Palm Beach, Beirut, and the Salzburg, Bayreuth, Verona, and Glimmerglass Festivals.

Society

Du Quenoy has been chairman of the Russian Ball, Washington, D.C., a social event in the U.S. capital since 2013.

To protest the University of Michigan's disciplinary investigation of the composer Bright Sheng for having screened Laurence Olivier's 1965 film version of Shakespeare's Othello, in which Olivier appeared in black face, du Quenoy commissioned Sheng to compose a symphonic overture on the theme of freedom. The disciplinary investigation was subsequently dropped. The commissioned overture, titled "Triumph of Humanity," premiered at the opening concert of the Palm Beach Symphony's 50th anniversary season on November 19, 2023, under the baton of music director Gerard Schwarz.

Books

Stage Fright: Politics and the Performing Arts in Late Imperial Russia (2009) Wagner and the French Muse: Music, Society, and Nation in Modern France (2011) Alexander Serov and the Birth of the Russian Modern (2016/2022) Cancel Culture: Tales from the Front Lines (2021) Through the Years with Prince Charming: The Collected Music Criticism of Paul du Quenoy (2021)