Dr. Nathan Martin

Biography

Nathan Martin joined the University of Michigan in 2015 after previously holding postdoctoral fellowships and teaching positions at institutions including Columbia, Harvard, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, and Yale. He received his PhD from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in 2009. Martin's primary research interests include the history of music theory and the analysis of musical form. His published work focuses on the history of music theory, with a concentration on theoretical writings related to Jean-Philippe Rameau and the early French reception of music theory, particularly as it relates to the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Martin approaches the history of music theory as a branch of intellectual history, emphasizing practical engagements such as historically informed analysis, style-bound improvisation, and model composition. He is interested in integrating etic and emic perspectives in historical theories by exploring the relationships between music-theoretical systems and their intellectual, institutional, and cultural contexts. Furthermore, he has developed an interest in empirical methods borrowed from social sciences and linguistics to investigate questions about musical form. Martin has served as co-editor for 'Music Theory & Analysis' from 2013 to 2019 and has contributed to volumes including 'Formal Functions Perspective: Essays on Musical Form' and 'Analyzing Mozart’s Operas'. His article, 'Rameau’s Changing Views on Supposition and Suspension', won the Society for Music Theory’s Outstanding Publication Award in 2014. He held the Edward T. Cone Membership at the Music Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton during the 2018–2019 academic year and pursued research at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt in summer 2023. He has an upcoming leave for the Warburg/i Tatti Joint Fellowship in 2025-2026.

Research Interests