H. Colin Slim, April 9, 1929 – October 22, 2019

In memoriam

H. Colin Slim

April 9, 1929 – October 22, 2019

The Claire Trevor School of the Arts family said a heartfelt goodbye to a founding faculty member, H. Colin Slim, music historian, conductor and pianist. Slim received his B.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1951 and a Ph.D. in music history from Harvard University in 1959. He received the Otto Kinkeldey Award for his two-volume Gift of Madrigals and Motets discussing Italian madrigals, motets, and keyboard and lute music of the Renaissance. Slim founded UC Irvine’s Department of Music in 1965 and served as the chair until 1978. In 1976, he was named Distinguished Research Professor and later deemed Full Professor Above-Scale in 1983. Slim believed that understanding music came from performance experience, and even in the music program’s early stages, Slim pushed for performance opportunities to be a core component of the curriculum for music majors. Slim died in Berkeley, California on Oct. 22, 2019, after suffering a debilitating stroke early that year.

Image: H. Colin Slim, courtesy of the University Communications archival collection.

Image: H. Colin Slim, courtesy of the University Communications archival collection.