In the Music Theory and Cognition Program at Northwestern we construe the experience of music as an integral part of human experience and study it as reflected in meaningful human actions.

At the center of our interests is the act of listening. Students enrolled in the program are equipped with the tools and methods necessary to explore its perceptual, cognitive, affective, intellectual, cultural and historical dimensions, and they work closely on developing their own research agendas with scholars who are as passionate as them about this exploration.

The graduate student support provided to PhD students includes year-round tuition and stipend and fully subsidized health insurance.

About the Music Theory and Cognition Program

At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, students receive first-class training and experience in the ever expanding and diversifying discipline of music theory.

Our faculty are leaders in evolving sub-disciplines such as systematic music theory, popular music studies, historical music theory, and situated cognition. Northwestern students have the further advantage of studying with renowned scholars in the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science, both within and outside the Bienen School of Music.

Undergraduate students develop facility in traditional areas such as counterpoint, harmony, ear-training, melody, rhythm, and form, while also studying music history and culture. The undergraduate programs of study address questions involving musical construction, listener response, the features of musical style, and the basis for common metaphors used in describing music. They offer excellent preparation for continued graduate study in music research—be it in theory, musicology, or cognition—or for careers in other sectors where a solid foundation in music will be useful.

Graduate students are encouraged to pursue research in areas among the faculty's expertise. These include topics such as the following:

  • Schema theory, categorization, and style

  • Music and memory

  • Tonality

  • Rhythm and meter

  • Eighteenth-century music

  • Popular music

  • Musical design in relation to gender and sexuality

  • Technologically mediated performance; expressive performance

  • Music and communication

  • Historically informed theory and cognition

Beyond these specializations, the faculty may supervise a broad range of topics, from traditional areas of music theory such as Formenlehre and the history of music theory to specialized topics in the cognitive sciences, including music and neuroscience.

Graduates of Our Program

Stephen Hudson (PhD19)

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Richmond

Bruno Alcalde (PhD18)

Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina

Olga Sanchez-Kisielewska (MM11, PhD18)

Lecturer of Music Theory, University of Chicago

Rosa Abrahams (MM11, PhD17)

Assistant Professor, Ursinus College

Kristina Knowles (PhD16)

Assistant Professor, Arizona State University

Karen Chan Barrett (PhD15)

Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Otolaryngology, University of California San Francisco Medical Center

Janet Bourne (PhD15)

Assistant Professor, University of California-Santa Barbara

Cora Palfy (MM13, PhD15)

Assistant Professor, Elon University

JiChul Kim (PhD13)

Postdoctoral researcher, University of Connecticut

Benjamin Anderson (PhD12)

Senior Data Scientist, Sysco

Ben Duane (PhD12)

Assistant Professor, Washington University of St. Louis

Kyung Myun Lee (PhD12)

Assistant Professor, Korean Advanced Technical Institute of Science and Technology

Ives Chor (PhD10)

Lead Product Manager, Groupon

Caroline Davis (PhD10)

New York-based jazz musician and educator

Stacey Davis (PhD02)

Associate Chair of the Department of Music and Associate Professor, University of Texas-San Antonio

Cynthia McGregor (PhD00)

Dean, School of the Arts, Communications and Social Sciences, Southwestern College

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Music Theory and Cognition PhD Students

PhD Candidate

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Anjni Amin

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PhD Candidate

anjniamin2014@u.northwestern.edu

Anjni Amin’s research engages a range of topics, including expressive performance, music theory pedagogy, world music pedagogy, and music education. Her dissertation examines the development of expressive interpretation skills through interaction between performer-pedagogue and student in the collegiate performance studio. She has presented her research at the International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition and the International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music, as well as at meetings of the College Music Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology. Her work dealing with both music theory and world music pedagogy is published in The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy. Prior to her doctoral studies, she earned her B.S. in music education from The College of Saint Rose and her M.M. in music theory from Northwestern. Currently, Anjni is on the faculty at Oberlin College & Conservatory teaching theory and aural skills.

PhD Candidate

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Sara Bowden

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PhD Candidate

SaraBowden2019@u.northwestern.edu

Sara Bowden grew up at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Maryville, TN. They earned their undergraduate degree in Music Theory from The University of North Texas (B.M. 2018, Thesis: “Kill or Be Killed: Music as a Moral Catalyst in Toby Fox’s Undertale”) and their master’s degree in Music Theory and Cognition from Northwestern University (M.M. 2019, Thesis: “Narrative Transformation and Music in Mediatized Moral Space in Charlie Brooker’s Bandersnatch”). Their research interests include sound studies and public cultures, video game music and affect, and players’ encounters with video game music as enriched by music’s relationship to rhetoric in the visual novel category. Their published work on musical disruption in psychological horror games may be read in The Soundtrack. They have presented papers at regional, national, and international conferences including IASPM-ANZ, Music and the Moving Image, and Music Theory Midwest. Outside of their academic pursuits, Sara is an in-demand marching arts educator, choreographer, and guest clinician. As an educator in the Chicago area, Sara currently works as a field instructor for the seven-time Bands of America Grand National Champion Marian Catholic High School Marching Band. An active performer, they are a trombonist for the Clamor & Lace Noise Brigade, Chicago’s first street band comprised solely of women and non-binary performers.

3rd year PhD

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Leo Casti

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3rd year PhD

LauraCasti2021@u.northwestern.edu

Leo Casti ’21 MMus is a native of Sardinia, Italy, where they worked as an orchestral musician and high school music teacher until moving to the USA in 2019. They holds three artist diplomas “vecchio ordinamento” - old system- in harp, choral conducting, and composition; two bachelor’s degrees in orchestral conducting and tourism; two master’s degrees in composition and modern languages obtained - all seven with top grades, four of them with honors - in the Italian conservatories/universities of Torino, Sassari, and Trapani. Casti has won national and international contests as a harpist and their composition master has been subsidized by the foundation CRT of Torino. Their previous researches in music theory involved the relationship(s) between musical and linguistic phraseology, Gestalt theory and music perception, and the use of past-related quotations in polystylistic music of the 21st century. Having been a passionate teacher of music theory and composition at the Liceo "D.A.Azuni" in Sassari, Casti would also love to dive deep into the compositional techniques of the Neapolitan school and partimento art of the 18th century, to help disclose that well-crafted music is not only a prerogative of “musical genius” but that it is accessible to every highly trained musician.

PhD Candidate

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Lena Console

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PhD Candidate

LenaConsole2023@u.northwestern.edu

A native of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Lena Console holds two bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music: a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance and a Bachelor of Science in Music Theory & Philosophy. After a lifetime in the Midwest, Lena spent four years working and performing in Seattle, Washington. There she worked as a research coordinator for the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, researching impacts of group music-making on children’s empathy and pro-social behavior; and as a teaching artist for various organizations, including the Seattle Symphony, where she piloted a community composition residency program with adults who are facing homelessness. As a trumpet performer, her experiences range from historical performance to modern jazz and rock covers. Lena’s current research interests focus on the intersections between aesthetic perception and mindfulness, exploring cognitive components such as attention, memory, and expectation. Also passionate about community engagement, Lena hopes to develop her academic research to create accessible programs for those outside of academia. 

Anjni Amin

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PhD Candidate

anjniamin2014@u.northwestern.edu

Anjni Amin’s research engages a range of topics, including expressive performance, music theory pedagogy, world music pedagogy, and music education. Her dissertation examines the development of expressive interpretation skills through interaction between performer-pedagogue and student in the collegiate performance studio. She has presented her research at the International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition and the International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music, as well as at meetings of the College Music Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology. Her work dealing with both music theory and world music pedagogy is published in The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy. Prior to her doctoral studies, she earned her B.S. in music education from The College of Saint Rose and her M.M. in music theory from Northwestern. Currently, Anjni is on the faculty at Oberlin College & Conservatory teaching theory and aural skills.

Sara Bowden

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PhD Candidate

SaraBowden2019@u.northwestern.edu

Sara Bowden grew up at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Maryville, TN. They earned their undergraduate degree in Music Theory from The University of North Texas (B.M. 2018, Thesis: “Kill or Be Killed: Music as a Moral Catalyst in Toby Fox’s Undertale”) and their master’s degree in Music Theory and Cognition from Northwestern University (M.M. 2019, Thesis: “Narrative Transformation and Music in Mediatized Moral Space in Charlie Brooker’s Bandersnatch”). Their research interests include sound studies and public cultures, video game music and affect, and players’ encounters with video game music as enriched by music’s relationship to rhetoric in the visual novel category. Their published work on musical disruption in psychological horror games may be read in The Soundtrack. They have presented papers at regional, national, and international conferences including IASPM-ANZ, Music and the Moving Image, and Music Theory Midwest. Outside of their academic pursuits, Sara is an in-demand marching arts educator, choreographer, and guest clinician. As an educator in the Chicago area, Sara currently works as a field instructor for the seven-time Bands of America Grand National Champion Marian Catholic High School Marching Band. An active performer, they are a trombonist for the Clamor & Lace Noise Brigade, Chicago’s first street band comprised solely of women and non-binary performers.

Leo Casti

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3rd year PhD

LauraCasti2021@u.northwestern.edu

Leo Casti ’21 MMus is a native of Sardinia, Italy, where they worked as an orchestral musician and high school music teacher until moving to the USA in 2019. They holds three artist diplomas “vecchio ordinamento” - old system- in harp, choral conducting, and composition; two bachelor’s degrees in orchestral conducting and tourism; two master’s degrees in composition and modern languages obtained - all seven with top grades, four of them with honors - in the Italian conservatories/universities of Torino, Sassari, and Trapani. Casti has won national and international contests as a harpist and their composition master has been subsidized by the foundation CRT of Torino. Their previous researches in music theory involved the relationship(s) between musical and linguistic phraseology, Gestalt theory and music perception, and the use of past-related quotations in polystylistic music of the 21st century. Having been a passionate teacher of music theory and composition at the Liceo "D.A.Azuni" in Sassari, Casti would also love to dive deep into the compositional techniques of the Neapolitan school and partimento art of the 18th century, to help disclose that well-crafted music is not only a prerogative of “musical genius” but that it is accessible to every highly trained musician.

Lena Console

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PhD Candidate

LenaConsole2023@u.northwestern.edu

A native of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Lena Console holds two bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music: a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance and a Bachelor of Science in Music Theory & Philosophy. After a lifetime in the Midwest, Lena spent four years working and performing in Seattle, Washington. There she worked as a research coordinator for the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, researching impacts of group music-making on children’s empathy and pro-social behavior; and as a teaching artist for various organizations, including the Seattle Symphony, where she piloted a community composition residency program with adults who are facing homelessness. As a trumpet performer, her experiences range from historical performance to modern jazz and rock covers. Lena’s current research interests focus on the intersections between aesthetic perception and mindfulness, exploring cognitive components such as attention, memory, and expectation. Also passionate about community engagement, Lena hopes to develop her academic research to create accessible programs for those outside of academia. 

3rd year PhD

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Laine Gruver

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3rd year PhD

LaineGruver2026@u.northwestern.edu

Laine Gruver is from Mill Valley, California, and earned her B.S. in Neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. At UCLA, she merged her studies of neuroscience with music by designing and teaching her own seminar course within the Department of Musicology, entitled ‘Psychomusicology: How Music and the Brain Create Our Experienced Reality.’ She additionally completed an independent ecomusicology research project in which she examined how the scores of the BBC’s Planet Earth and Planet Earth II aimed to evoke different empathetic reactions from viewers. Particularly fascinated with the listening experience, Laine intends to center her research at Northwestern on musical memory and nostalgia, especially in regards to how they help cultivate our personal taste in music. She is also intrigued by issues of gender as they intersect with popular music, and hopes to explore those issues through a certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

2nd Year PhD

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Hunter Hoyle

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2nd Year PhD

HunterHoyle2027@u.northwestern.edu

Hunter Hoyle is from Sanford, North Carolina. Prior to his doctoral studies at Northwestern, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest distinction and highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022, receiving a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Piano Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Hunter’s research interests include the perception and cognition of musical form, twentieth-century music that fuses Western and non-Western elements (especially the music of Margaret Bonds and Florence Price), and the practical applications of music-cognitive research to music theory pedagogy and music therapy. Passionate about interdisciplinary research, his senior honors thesis (“Sonata Form Revisited: Towards a Cognitive Theory of Formal Interference”) draws upon schema theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and gestalt theory as a means of reexamining Hepokoski and Darcy’s sonata theory through the lens of music cognition. Published in JOURney: The UNC Journal of Undergraduate Research, another one of Hunter’s papers (“Maximizing Form in Minimalism: Psychological Form as Narrative in Philip Glass’s Etude No. 6”) uses David Huron’s 2013 habituation-fluency theory of repetition to illustrate how formal manipulations of textural density and metrical dissonance can be perceived as conveying narrative in minimalism, a musical style that has historically been viewed as “antiteleological.”

1st year PhD

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Kim Kawczinski

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1st year PhD

KimberlyKawczinski2028@u.northwestern.edu

Kim Kawczinski is interested in examining how musical features come to develop personal and cultural significance via repetition, ritual, and embodiment. Kim holds an M.A. in Music, Science, and Technology from Stanford University and an A.B. in Music with a double major in Physics from the University of Chicago. She has also worked in industry in the audio technology research space. Kim has previously worked on acoustical space, room reverberation, and spatial audio, including her undergraduate thesis (“On Interpreting Acoustic Space in Contemporary Musical Performance Practice”) and publications with the Audio Engineering Society and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Kim also plays the violin and composes.

2nd Year PhD

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Amy King

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2nd Year PhD

AmyKing2020@northwestern.edu

Amy King hails from Oak Ridge, North Carolina. In 2016, she earned her B.A. in Piano Performance and English Literature from High Point University and went on to complete her M.M. in Music Theory and Cognition from Northwestern University in 2020. Her master’s thesis, “Sounds of Poetry in Britten’s ‘Death, be not proud’”—which she also presented at various conferences—combines her love of poetry with musical sound, meaning, and interpretation. Her current research focuses on linguistic approaches to music theory, particularly in regards to communication, meaning, and emotion in music. Amy also engages in public music theory and is an advocate for accessibility and diversity in music education.

Laine Gruver

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3rd year PhD

LaineGruver2026@u.northwestern.edu

Laine Gruver is from Mill Valley, California, and earned her B.S. in Neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. At UCLA, she merged her studies of neuroscience with music by designing and teaching her own seminar course within the Department of Musicology, entitled ‘Psychomusicology: How Music and the Brain Create Our Experienced Reality.’ She additionally completed an independent ecomusicology research project in which she examined how the scores of the BBC’s Planet Earth and Planet Earth II aimed to evoke different empathetic reactions from viewers. Particularly fascinated with the listening experience, Laine intends to center her research at Northwestern on musical memory and nostalgia, especially in regards to how they help cultivate our personal taste in music. She is also intrigued by issues of gender as they intersect with popular music, and hopes to explore those issues through a certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Hunter Hoyle

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2nd Year PhD

HunterHoyle2027@u.northwestern.edu

Hunter Hoyle is from Sanford, North Carolina. Prior to his doctoral studies at Northwestern, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest distinction and highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022, receiving a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Piano Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Hunter’s research interests include the perception and cognition of musical form, twentieth-century music that fuses Western and non-Western elements (especially the music of Margaret Bonds and Florence Price), and the practical applications of music-cognitive research to music theory pedagogy and music therapy. Passionate about interdisciplinary research, his senior honors thesis (“Sonata Form Revisited: Towards a Cognitive Theory of Formal Interference”) draws upon schema theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and gestalt theory as a means of reexamining Hepokoski and Darcy’s sonata theory through the lens of music cognition. Published in JOURney: The UNC Journal of Undergraduate Research, another one of Hunter’s papers (“Maximizing Form in Minimalism: Psychological Form as Narrative in Philip Glass’s Etude No. 6”) uses David Huron’s 2013 habituation-fluency theory of repetition to illustrate how formal manipulations of textural density and metrical dissonance can be perceived as conveying narrative in minimalism, a musical style that has historically been viewed as “antiteleological.”

Kim Kawczinski

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1st year PhD

KimberlyKawczinski2028@u.northwestern.edu

Kim Kawczinski is interested in examining how musical features come to develop personal and cultural significance via repetition, ritual, and embodiment. Kim holds an M.A. in Music, Science, and Technology from Stanford University and an A.B. in Music with a double major in Physics from the University of Chicago. She has also worked in industry in the audio technology research space. Kim has previously worked on acoustical space, room reverberation, and spatial audio, including her undergraduate thesis (“On Interpreting Acoustic Space in Contemporary Musical Performance Practice”) and publications with the Audio Engineering Society and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Kim also plays the violin and composes.

Amy King

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2nd Year PhD

AmyKing2020@northwestern.edu

Amy King hails from Oak Ridge, North Carolina. In 2016, she earned her B.A. in Piano Performance and English Literature from High Point University and went on to complete her M.M. in Music Theory and Cognition from Northwestern University in 2020. Her master’s thesis, “Sounds of Poetry in Britten’s ‘Death, be not proud’”—which she also presented at various conferences—combines her love of poetry with musical sound, meaning, and interpretation. Her current research focuses on linguistic approaches to music theory, particularly in regards to communication, meaning, and emotion in music. Amy also engages in public music theory and is an advocate for accessibility and diversity in music education.

PhD Candidate

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Morgan Patrick

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PhD Candidate

MorganPatrick2023@u.northwestern.edu

Morgan Patrick is a PhD candidate from Westport, Connecticut. At Brown University he created an undergraduate degree in music cognition, graduating with an interdisciplinary honors thesis in the Departments of Music and Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences. There, his research focused on parallels between Western tonality and the cognition of visual narrative structure. Patrick's current research investigates how musical form guides attention during real-time listening and during multimedia experiences of narrative. He is also interested in the cognitive mechanisms that underlie theme learning in film and concert music, especially as they relate to the psychology of expectation and immersion.

PhD Candidate

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​​​​​​​Emily Schwitzgebel

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PhD Candidate

EmilySchwitzgebel2025@u.northwestern.edu

Emily Schwitzgebel’s current research focuses on expectation in music, with intersections in music and emotion, music and language, and uses of computational modeling. She has presented at conferences held by the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and the Northeast Music Cognition Group, as well as at the annual Music and Informatics interest group meeting hosted by the Society for Music Theory. Prior to her studies at Northwestern, Emily earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and Composition from the College of Wooster, and a Master of Music in Music Theory from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A strong advocate for interdisciplinary research, she aims to engage with several fields of study, drawing on her research expertise to bridge the gap between scholarship and pedagogy.  
 

4th year PhD

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Michael Slattery

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4th year PhD

MichaelSlattery2020@u.northwestern.edu

Michael Slattery is from Hartland, Michigan. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, both from Northwestern University. His work there as an undergraduate included a project, funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research, on sacred quotations and topical content in the symphonies of Anton Bruckner as well as a senior thesis on virtual agency in the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. Michael is interested in understanding the construction of musical meaning through an variety of approaches, particularly topic theory and theories of form. Outside of his academic life, he has worked as a collaborative pianist for voice lessons at Northwestern.

1st year PhD

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Emily Warkentin

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1st year PhD

EmilyWarkentin2029@u.northwestern.edu

Emily Warkentin is from Dripping Springs, Texas. She holds a BA in Music and Psychology from Trinity University. Her research strives to meld cognitive and linguistic perspectives with musical analysis to explore musical meaning in childhood, perception and learning, and late-life memory. Her undergraduate work included a children’s language research publication in Brain Sciences Journal and a senior thesis on the prominence of the Ziffersystem—a numerical music notation—in 18th-19th century Russian Mennonite choral communities. An active pianist, composer, and choral singer, Emily fuels her research interests with a deep love for musical creativity and community engagement.

Morgan Patrick

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PhD Candidate

MorganPatrick2023@u.northwestern.edu

Morgan Patrick is a PhD candidate from Westport, Connecticut. At Brown University he created an undergraduate degree in music cognition, graduating with an interdisciplinary honors thesis in the Departments of Music and Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences. There, his research focused on parallels between Western tonality and the cognition of visual narrative structure. Patrick's current research investigates how musical form guides attention during real-time listening and during multimedia experiences of narrative. He is also interested in the cognitive mechanisms that underlie theme learning in film and concert music, especially as they relate to the psychology of expectation and immersion.

​​​​​​​Emily Schwitzgebel

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PhD Candidate

EmilySchwitzgebel2025@u.northwestern.edu

Emily Schwitzgebel’s current research focuses on expectation in music, with intersections in music and emotion, music and language, and uses of computational modeling. She has presented at conferences held by the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and the Northeast Music Cognition Group, as well as at the annual Music and Informatics interest group meeting hosted by the Society for Music Theory. Prior to her studies at Northwestern, Emily earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and Composition from the College of Wooster, and a Master of Music in Music Theory from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A strong advocate for interdisciplinary research, she aims to engage with several fields of study, drawing on her research expertise to bridge the gap between scholarship and pedagogy.  
 

Michael Slattery

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4th year PhD

MichaelSlattery2020@u.northwestern.edu

Michael Slattery is from Hartland, Michigan. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, both from Northwestern University. His work there as an undergraduate included a project, funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research, on sacred quotations and topical content in the symphonies of Anton Bruckner as well as a senior thesis on virtual agency in the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. Michael is interested in understanding the construction of musical meaning through an variety of approaches, particularly topic theory and theories of form. Outside of his academic life, he has worked as a collaborative pianist for voice lessons at Northwestern.

Emily Warkentin

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1st year PhD

EmilyWarkentin2029@u.northwestern.edu

Emily Warkentin is from Dripping Springs, Texas. She holds a BA in Music and Psychology from Trinity University. Her research strives to meld cognitive and linguistic perspectives with musical analysis to explore musical meaning in childhood, perception and learning, and late-life memory. Her undergraduate work included a children’s language research publication in Brain Sciences Journal and a senior thesis on the prominence of the Ziffersystem—a numerical music notation—in 18th-19th century Russian Mennonite choral communities. An active pianist, composer, and choral singer, Emily fuels her research interests with a deep love for musical creativity and community engagement.

FAQs

What would I study and learn in the program?

The PhD program is rooted in the discipline of music theory. Students receive thorough training in the analysis of musical structure, systematic and historical aspects of music theory, and psychological aspects of musical structure. Areas of research in the program deal with style analysis in historically informed ways, the intersection of theory and culture, expressive performance in music, the psychological nature of musical styles and structure, and the psychophysiology of musical experience.

See Full Degree Requirements:

Should I apply for the Master's or the PhD?

Students whose ultimate goal is to pursue a PhD in music theory should apply directly to the PhD program. It is possible to apply directly to the PhD with a bachelor's degree; a master's degree is not required. Our MM degree functions more as a one-year course of study than an entry point in the PhD. The MM program is more appropriate for students who wish to explore or strengthen their knowledge of music theory before embarking on further graduate study.

Why focus on the PhD and not the Master's?

While a Master's degree is a beneficial step towards a career in academia, our streamlined 5-year PhD program allows students to acquire the equivalent of a Master's degree in the process of obtaining their PhD.  It is beneficial to the student because it provides full funding for the entire 5-year course of study. In addition, the end degree has a higher likelihood of job placement for our exiting students. We admit up to two PhD students per year.

What will I do with a PhD when I'm done?

Students with a PhD in Music Theory and Cognition will be qualified for a career as a professor in a college or university music department. Our program is not intended for students seeking positions in psychology or neuroscience departments. Within the field of music theory, more and more job descriptions are listing cognition as a desired area of research emphasis, and our graduates will be strong contenders thereby.

What should I do to prepare?

You should have as strong an undergraduate background in music theory, music history, and music performance as possible. Courses in form, atonal analysis, and advanced harmonic analysis are advisable. A semester of statistics is helpful, as well as an introductory course in experimental methods. Our accepted students usually have a broad background, and many have publications or conference presentations on their record before admission.

It would be helpful to read journals such as the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, and Music Perception, and to attend conferences such as the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory. There is also burgeoning literature in music cognition that you can read as you prepare. If your interests are cognitive you should also join the Society for Music Perception and Cognition.

How do I apply?

Application requirements include two transcripts, letters of reference, the general GRE, TOEFL (for international students), and writing samples.

MM applicants apply through the Bienen School of Music. PhD applicants apply online via The Graduate School at Northwestern; start by reading the PhD Application Process.