2023 Executive Board Election

Leigh VanHandel (Ph.D., Music Theory and Acoustics, Stanford University 2005; M.A., Music Theory, Stony Brook University, 1994; B.A. Music Theory, Ohio State University, 1992) is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Music Theory area at the University of British Columbia, where she has been teaching since 2020. Previously she taught at Michigan State University and the University of Oregon. Her research interests include music cognition, rhythm and meter, music theory pedagogy, computer applications in music research, music and language, and how those things all relate to one another. She was editor and contributor toThe Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (Routledge, 2020), which won the SMT Outstanding Multi-Author Publication Award in 2022. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Music Perception, Music Theory Spectrum, Journal for Music Theory Pedagogy, Journal for New Music Research, and Empirical Musicology Review, and she has written chapters for Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom (OUP, 2023), the Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory (OUP, 2022), and the Oxford Handbook of Music and Corpus Studies (OUP, 2023). She was the author of Music Theory Skill Builder and maintains a blog, Ask Dr. Van, an ongoing public music theory/music cognition project in which she answers music theory and music cognition questions from students who find her on the internet. In addition, she has presented numerous invited lectures, workshops, and conference papers at national and international conferences. She was a member of the Advanced Placement Music Theory Test Development Committee (2018–2021) and a Fellow at the 2019 Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy, and she is now serving as co-director of the Workshops. She has served on the editorial boards forMusic Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, Music Perception, and Empirical Musicology Review. In addition to service to regional conferences including the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Music Theory Midwest, she has served SMT as a member of the Executive Board (2019–2021), as the Chair of the Pedagogy Interest Group (2019–2023), on the Program Committee in 2014, and as a member of the Networking Committee [now the Information Technology Committee] (2003–2009).

Jack Boss (Ph.D. and M.Phil., Music Theory, Yale University, 1991 and 1987; M.Mus., Music Composition, Ohio State University, 1981; B.Mus., Music Theory and Composition, Ohio State University, 1979) is Professor of Music Theory and Composition and chair of the Academic Music Department at the University of Oregon, where he has taught since 1995. Previously he taught at Brigham Young University, Ball State University, and Yale. His research interests include large-scale coherence and “musical idea” in Arnold Schoenberg’s music, how musical form is realized in George Walker’s post-tonal music, and text-painting in the music of Bernard Rands and others.

His first book, Schoenberg’s Twelve-Tone Music: Symmetry and the Musical Idea, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014; in 2015, it received the Wallace Berry Award from the SMT. In 2019, he published a “prequel,” Schoenberg’s Atonal Music: Musical Idea, Basic Image, and Specters of Tonal Function , also with Cambridge. He is presently working on Schoenberg’s Tonal Music, under contract with Cambridge. His most recent article, “George Walker’s Piano Music: Traditional Forms in Tonal, Serial and Atonal Styles,” was published in MTO in September 2022. Other articles, book chapters and reviews are found in the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives of New Music, Music Analysis, Music Theory Online, Intégral, Gamut, Notes, The Cambridge Companion to Serialism, Schoenberg in Context, The Oxford Handbook of Variation Forms and Techniques, Musical Currents from the Left Coast, Analyzing the Music of Living Composers (and Others), and Form and Process in Music, 1300–2014. Boss has given scholarly presentations throughout the U.S., England, Ireland, Belgium, Brazil, and South Korea. In April 2020, he gave the first-ever virtual lecture at the Oxford University Seminar in Music Theory and Analysis, and in October 2021 he gave an invited lecture for the International MusMat conference, hosted in Rio de Janeiro.

Boss served as Chair of the SMT Publications Committee (2019–22) and reviews editor for Music Theory Online (2001–2006). He also served on the SMT Nominating, Publication Subventions, and Professional Development Committees. He was reviews editor, associate editor, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Music Theory (1989–1991) and served on the editorial board for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy (2005–2010). He was president of the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis (2003–2018), has helped determine their programs for numerous meetings, and manages their website. He was also a founding member of the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory.

Melissa Hoag (Ph.D. and M.M., Music Theory, Indiana University, 2008 and 2002; B.M., Drake University, 2000) is Associate Professor at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where she has taught since 2007. Hoag is committed to the ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and seeks to mentor and champion new ideas and persons in the field. In 2022, Hoag earned a certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Cornell University to support her work in this regard. She is editor of Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom (Routledge, 2022), a publication that addresses the underrepresentation of Black composers in music theory curricula and strives to make this music readily accessible through analyses and lesson plans. In addition to diversification of the music theory curriculum, her research interests include music theory pedagogy (especially counterpoint pedagogy), art song analysis, and voice leading in the music of Brahms. Her articles and reviews have appeared inThe Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (ed. VanHandel);BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute;Music Theory Online;Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy;Dutch Journal of Music Theory; Gamut;Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy; Music Theory Pedagogy Online; College Music Symposium; and Notes. Recently, her podcast episode on diverse counterpoint pedagogy was released via SMT-Pod (2023), and in 2021, Hoag was guest editor for a special theory pedagogy issue of HAYDN . Hoag currently serves as reviews editor for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and has previously served on the editorial boards of College Music Symposium and SMT-V. She has served Music Theory Midwest as Secretary (2012–2016); conference host (2015); on nominations (2010), local arrangements (2003, 2006, 2007), archives (2015), and program (2020, 2006) committees; session chair (2020, 2016); and student representative (2005–2007). She has been extensively involved with the College Board’s AP Exam in Music Theory since 2007, and will begin a term on the AP Test Development Committee in June 2023. Hoag has served SMT as member of the editorial board of Music Theory Online (2015–2018); as member (2013–2015) and chair (2023–2025) of the Professional Development Committee; and as career mentor to a junior scholar (2008–2009).

Horace J. Maxile (Ph.D, Musicology (Music Theory emphasis), Louisiana State University, 2002; M.M., Music Theory, Southeastern Louisiana University, 1997; B.S., Music Education, Louisiana Tech University, 1994) is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Baylor University, where he has been teaching since 2012 and was awarded an Outstanding University Professor award for teaching in 2020. Prior to his appointment at Baylor, he taught at The University of North Carolina at Asheville and served as Associate Director of Research at the Center for Black Music Research (Columbia College Chicago). His research interests include the concert music of Black American composers, gospel music, and musical semiotics. His articles and essays have appeared in Perspectives of New Music, The Annual Review of Jazz Studies, Black Music Research Journal, Journal for the Society of American Music, and American Music. Representative writings include “Culture and Craft in Florence B. Price’s Sonata in E minor (First Movement) in Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music 1900–1960 (Oxford, 2022); “Of Simple Forms and Firsts, On Francis Johnson and Harry Burleigh” in Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Canon (Routledge, 2022); and “Ponderings and Perspectives (Around and About the Field) (Theory and Practice 46, 2021). He was Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of African American Music (Greenwood Press, 2011). He has served as Editor of the Black Music Research Journal, chair of the Society for Music Theory Committee on Diversity [now Committee on Race and Ethnicity], a member of the American Musicological Society Council, and a member of the Society for American Music Board of Trustees.

Brad Osborn (Ph.D, Music Theory, University of Washington, 2010; M.M., Music Theory, Florida State University, 2006; B.S., Education with a concentration in instrumental music, Missouri State University, 2003) is Professor of Music Theory and Affiliated Faculty in American Studies at the University of Kansas, where he has been teaching since 2013. He previously held positions at Rhodes College, DePauw University, and Ohio University. His research lies at the intersection of music theory and popular music studies. He is the author of the monograph Everything in its Right Place: Analyzing Radiohead (Oxford, 2017). Brad has also authored three textbooks: Interpreting Music Video: Popular Music in the Post-MTV Era (Routledge, 2021); American Popular Music (Oxford, 2021), written with Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman; and Music Theory Matters, co-authored with Christine Boone, which is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2024. Brad’s articles and reviews have appeared in Music Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, Perspectives of New Music, Music Analysis, SMT-V, The Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, Popular Music, Music and the Moving Image , Music and Science, Gamut, Current Musicology, and Intégral. He regularly presents papers at meetings of the SMT and international popular music societies, and has given numerous invited lectures across the United States and Canada. Brad has previously served SMT as associate editor of Music Theory Online (2020–2022), as a member of the Music Theory Online editorial board (2018–2020), as chair of the Popular Music Interest Group (2014–16), and as a member of the Committee on the Status of Women [now Committee on Feminist Issues and Gender Equity] (2012–2014). Brad writes and records shoegazey post-rock as the artist D’Archipelago.