A native of Germany, Dr. Luise Peake, Distinguished Professor Emerita, studied at the Berlin Conservatory and passed the State Exam for Piano Teachers there. Coming to the States shortly after WWII, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Tennessee, a Master of Music in Piano, as a pupil of Rudolf Ganz, and another Master degree in Musicology from the Chicago Musical College. At Columbia University in New York she received a Ph.D., and was named a Columbia University Fellow. She worked as an assistant to Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Dr. Peake's research was mainly focused on the history of the Romantic Song Cycle. Her publications include a book on Conradin Kreutzer's Wanderlieder, articles in Music and Letters, Musical Quarterly, the NewGrove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and translations, editions, and reviews. For several years she served as Associate Editor of the Piano Quarterly. Past offices in professional societies include chairmanship of the American Musicological Society, Southeast Chapter, President of the College Music Society's Mid-Atlantic Chapter, and President of the Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations.

Coming to the University of South Carolina in 1968, Dr. Peake was the only musicologist in the state for many years. Hired first to supervise the Music Department's random collection of scores, books and records, she designed the organization that became the foundation of the present, professionally administrated, Music Library. For a number of years she founded and conducted a Collegium Musicum, gathering early-music enthusiasts from the University as well as the community.

Except for one year as Visiting Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Dr. Peake taught classes at the USC School of Music on every aspect of music history and literature, and supervised the writing of many doctoral documents, until her retirement in 1994.