William P. Malm died peacefully at home at the age of 96 in Ann Arbor, Michigan on September 16, 2024.
Born in 1928 in Evanston, Illinois, Dr. Malm was a well-known musicologist and scholar of Japanese music who shaped the field of ethnomusicology in the United States. A faculty member of the University of Michigan from 1960–1996, he authored the first English language scholarly treatise on the history and instruments of Japan, entitled Japanese Music and Musical Instruments (1959). His Music Cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia (1967) was a pioneer in world music textbooks.
Dr. Malm studied composition at Northwestern University where he completed a Bachelor’s in 1949 and a Master’s in Music in 1950. He was in his first semester teaching at the University of Illinois when he was drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces, serving as an instructor at the Naval School of Music from 1951–1953. He completed a Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1959.
During Dr. Malm’s tenure at the University of Michigan he was an immensely popular teacher who received the Henry J. Russel and State Legislature awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching. In 1980, he became director of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments at the U of M, one of the most extensive collections of musical instruments on a university campus. In 2021, a generous gift from Dr. Malm’s wife, Jutta Gerber-Malm, to the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance established the William P. Malm Stearns Collection Concert Series and Instrument Preservation Fund.
He received the Fumio Koizumi Prize in Ethnomusicology for his contributions to the study of Japanese music, as well as the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government in recognition of his contributions toward strengthening academic exchange and the relationship between Japan and the United States.
Bill Malm was a 64-year resident of Ann Arbor who loved sailing, astronomy, literature, and birds and had a great curiosity about and passion for all aspects of life.
He is survived by his wife, Jutta Gerber-Malm, three daughters from his first marriage to Joyce Rutherford Malm, who predeceased him in 2002, and two granddaughters.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, November 16 at 1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor.
