Philip Gossett is the Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor in Music and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the general editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, published by the University of Chicago Press and Casa Ricordi, and The Works of Gioachino Rossini. In 2004 he received one of four lifetime achievement awards given by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and in 1998 he received the Cavaliere di Gran Croce, the highest civilian award given by the Italian government.