Gilbert Chase (4 September 1906, Havana, Cuba – 22 February 1992, Chapel Hill, North Carolina) was an American music historian, critic and author, and a "seminal figure in the field of musicology and ethnomusicology. Chase served as the cultural attaché in Lima (1950–53), Buenos Aires (1953–55) and Brussels (1960–63). Chase taught at Tulane University, University of Texas, and the University of Oklahoma. After retiring in 1979, he moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and died there, of pneumonia, in 1992.