J. Peter Burkholder is Distinguished Professor of Musicology at Indiana University. He is the author of previous editions of A History of Western Music, the Norton Anthology of Western Music, and the Study and Listening Guide. In addition, he has written or edited four books on Charles Ives and has written numerous articles on topics spanning from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of Musicology, Musical Quarterly, 19th-Century Music, Music Theory Spectrum, and other journals. He has served as President, Vice President, and Director-at-Large of the American Musicological Society and on the board of the College Music Society, and his writings have received awards from the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, and ASCAP.

Donald Jay Grout, late professor of music at Cornell University, also wrote a standard history of opera.

Claude V. Palisca, late professor of music at Yale University, began his collaboration on A History of Western Music with the Third Edition. Among his many publications are a history of Baroque music and a collection of scholarly essays on Italian Renaissance music.