Irving Godt received his Ph.D. in historical musicology from New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1969. His dissertation, titled Guillaume Costeley (1531-1606): Life and Works, focused on his interest in early Renaissance music. While at NYU he studied under Jan LaRue and Gustave Reese. Prior to 1970 he taught courses at the University of Minnesota, Claremont College, and the Univerity of Illinois at Urbana. In 1970 he accepted a teaching position at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), where he taught until 2003. While his specialty remained Renaissance music, he taught every undergraduate and graduate course in music at IUP throughout his career there.

Godt was a founding member of the Allegheny Chapter of the American Musicological Society and has published more than 60 articles in scholarly musicological journals on a variety of topics. On December 5, 2006 he passed away at his home in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Sources:

Rakhonen, Carl. "In memoriam: Irving Godt, 1923-2006." Allegheny Chapter of the American Musicological Society, Recent Chapter News. Found online at: http://www.people.iup.edu/rahkonen/AllegAMS/recentnews.htm.