Music Theory at Eastman

The annual picture of Eastman alumni who served as on-site Readers for the Advanced Placement Music Theory Examination in Cleveland Jun 11-18. With a little over 100 readers, Eastman was represented by 16 people: music theorists, music educators, and a musicologist! They are:

Joon Park, Matt Bribitzer-Stull, Anna Stephan-Robinson, Nancy Rogers, Jenine Lawson, Sam Reenan, Laura D’Angelo, Stephanie Venturino Elizabeth Marvin, Kary Haddad, Joseph Kraus, Philip Chang, Adriana Martinez Figueroa, Chris Bartlett, Kelly Francis, and Ben Wadsworth.

Eastman alumni are the highest proportion of readers in this group of music theory pedagogues and researchers.

📸: Elizabeth Marvin

Please join me in welcoming Prof. Johnston!

Eastman School of Music Announces Erin Johnston as Assistant Professor of Music Theory Eastman School of Music announced that Erin Johnston has been named assistant professor of music theory, beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year.

Meet Drs. Andrew Blake and Kiyomi Kimura-Andoh, newly minted Eastman Theory alumni. Congratulations, Andrew and Kiyomi!!

Congratulations to our PhD student Zekai Liu! For his paper “Keyboard Distance: An Analytical Tool for Bridging Transformational Theory and Embodied Performance in Piano Music," he was awarded the Best Student Paper (Texas Society for Music Theory) and the Dorothy Payne award (Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic). 🥳

Zekai Liu ’23E, ’25E (MM) Congratulations to Eastman PhD candidate Zekai Liu ’23E, ’25E (MM) for being a recipient of two prestigious awards in Music Theory. His paper, titled “Keyboard Distance: An Analytical Tool for Bridging Transformational Theory and Embodied Performance in Piano Music,” won Best Student Paper a...

SMT has recently announced the winners of several prizes, and I'm thrilled to share that our students (as usual!) are cleaning up:

Ruixue Hu is a winner of the SMT-40 Dissertation Award, which will support the completion of ""Harmony in Diversity 和⽽不同: Theorizing Form, Performance, and Aesthetics in Traditional Qin Music."

Evan Martschenko won honorable mention for the Student Presentation Award. His winning paper, co-authored with Jacob Ludwig (CCM), is "Uncovering Howard Hanson's Proto-Set Theory Pedagogy."

Please join me in congratulating Ruixue and Evan!!

https://societymusictheory.org/announcement/smt-40-dissertation-fellowship-2026-winners-2026-02

https://societymusictheory.org/announcement/smt-2025-student-presentation-award-2026-02

SMT 2025 Student Presentation Award | SMT Feb 09 2026 By samfalotico The 2025 Student Presentation Award winner is Rebecca Moranis. Left: Moranis. Right (top to bottom): Kushan, Ludwig, Martschenko. The Student Presentation Award Committee is delighted to congratulate our 2025 award winner and honorable mentions. Winner: Rebecca Moranis, "...

FACULTY in the NEWS | We all know that one of the "hot topics" of today is AI... and WROC's Adam Chodak is digging into how this new technology impacts music.

Chodak recently interviewed Landon Morrison, Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Eastman, about the pros and cons of these tools... Morrison discusses everything from AI's democratization of music to the need for better regulations around it.

Watch the 30-minute conversation: bit.ly/4qimpbh
Learn more about studying theory with Professor Morrison: bit.ly/3Y4tRLg