Music Theory is the study of musical structure. We learn how music in historic and contemporary styles is constructed; how to deconstruct it through analysis and analytical modeling; and how to understand it through hermeneutic and historically informed interpretation. The Music Theory faculty at the University of Toronto—Ellie Hisama, Ryan McClelland, Mark Sallmen, Daphne Tan, Steven Vande Moortele, and Anton Vishio—features internationally renowned scholars and pedagogues with a variety of backgrounds and specializations, with a focus on music from the early nineteenth century until today.
All undergraduate students build musical fluency through two years of core courses in music theory, musicianship, and other skills. At the advanced undergraduate level, Music Theory features a variety of specialized courses, offering students the possibility to graduate with a major in Music History, Culture, and Theory within the BMus program.
At the graduate level, the combination of scholarly excellence, the intimate scale of the program, and the close ties to Musicology and Ethnomusicology make for a vibrant, friendly, and intellectually engaging environment that attracts top-level students pursuing the course-intensive MA or the research-oriented PhD in music theory. Graduate students receive ample opportunity to gain professional experience through teaching and research assistantships. They also benefit from the presence of the Institute for Music in Canada (IMC), the Centre for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Music (CSNCM) and the Music and Health Research Collaboratory (MaHRC) as well as from the regular presentations by guest speakers in the colloquium series, the graduate student roundtables, and special events such as the Form Forum.
News
- At the 2025 Society for Music Theory Conference in Minneapolis, current students Gabriella Vici, Kaylene Chan, Wes Khurana and Elwyn Rowlands will be presenting papers, and Evan Chan will be presenting at a poster session; Prof. Anton Vishio will be participating as pianist and co-presenter.
- Prof. Daphne Tan has received infrastructure funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) With collaborators Profs. Farzaneh Hemmasi (Ethnomusicology) and Nasim Niknafs (Music Education), Prof. Tan will use this funding to establish the INtercultural Study of Perceptions, Inter-Relations, and Experiences (INSPIRE) Music Lab.
- Emma Soldaat (PhD 2025) successfully defended her dissertation Memory as Formal Function in the Symphonies of Gustav Mahler in August and has accepted a postdoctoral research position at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem starting this fall.
- Michelle Grosser (PhD 2024) has been appointed Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Jacksonville State University.
- Scott Hanenberg (PhD 2018) and Caitlin Martinkus (PhD 2017) have both started new jobs teaching music theory at Pennsylvania State University.
- Current students Emma Soldaat, Elwyn Rowlands, Daniella Kistemaker, Prof. Steven Vande Moortele and alumni Scott Hanenberg and Caitlin Martinkus all presented papers at the 2025 conference of the Society for Music Analysis in Edinburgh.
- A volume Wagner Studies, edited by Steven Vande Moortele, appeared with Cambridge University Press this spring.
- In May, Anton Vishio presented a paper at a conference on Music and Cultural Mobility in the 20th Century at the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, and an invited lecture at the EPFL in Lausanne.
- Alexis Millares Thomson (PhD 2025) successfully defended his dissertation A Theory of Sets and Harmonic Complexity in Just Intonation and its Equal Temperament Approximations in the Chamber Music of Georg Friedrich Haas this spring. Alexis will join the faculty as a sessional lecture in January.
- Hannah Davis-Abraham was awarded a 2025 SMT-40 Dissertation Fellowship! The announcement of the award is here.
- We warmly welcome two Postdoctoral Fellows, Dr. Tadhg Sauvey and Dr. Moe Touizrar, who are working with Prof. Daphne Tan.
