Bruno Nettl was born in Prague, immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1939, received his PhD at Indiana University, and spent most of his career teaching ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois, where he is now professor emeritus of music and anthropology. His field experience has been with Native American people, in Iran, and in India. Best-known books are Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music (1995), The Study of Ethnomusicology (rev. ed. 2005); and Nettl's Elephant: On the History of Ethnomusicology (2010). Most recently, Becoming an Ethnomusicologist: A Miscellany of Influences was published by Scarecrow Press in 2013. He has served as president of the Society for Ethnomusicology and as editor of its journal, Ethnomusicology. Since 1990, he has held visiting professorships as Harvard University, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Syracuse U., U. of Washington, and other institutions. In 2012 he was named Charles Homer Hoskins Lecturer for 2012 by the American Council of Learned Societies and the first recipient of the Tai Ji Traditional Music Award (scholarship category), by the China Conservatory, Beijing.