George N. Heller was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan and
attended public schools in Dexter, Michigan. He
received Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral degrees in
Music Education from University of Michigan. He taught
music in Petersburg, Haslett and Farmington, Michigan
schools. He served in the US Army Bands as a tuba
soloist, assistant conductor and staff arranger. He
taught 29 years at University of Kansas. His teaching,
research, and service interests have included
instrumental and secondary music methods, world
music, the history of music education, and music
therapy. He has published over one hundred articles and
book chapters on these topics and has contributed
twenty-two articles on music education to New Grove
Dictionary of American Music. Career-long interest in
historical research in music education led him to serve
as the first national chair of the History Special
Research Interest Group of MENC. He was a founding
editor of Bulletin of Historical Research in Music
Education and on the editorial committees of Journal of
Research in Music Education, UPDATE: Application of
Research in Music Education, and Quarterly Journal of
Music Learnings and Teaching. He was co-editor of
Journal of Historical Research in Music Education.
Awards include Outstanding Young Man of America and
International Who's Who in Music.