Noah Kahrs
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
BIOGRAPHY
Noah Kahrs is a music theorist specializing in the last century’s experimental musics and the theories they carry. His research spans music by a wide range of composers including Hans Abrahamsen, Maryanne Amacher, Julius Eastman, Sofia Gubaidulina, Ryoji Ikeda, György Ligeti, Alvin Lucier, Giacinto Scelsi, James Tenney, and Pamela Z. His work situates these composers’ stylistic characteristics and compositional methods within acoustical and cognitive contexts.
Noah has presented at many regional and national conferences, and he has published on Sofia Gubaidulina’s compositional processes in Music Theory Online and Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung, on Hans Abrahamsen’s compositional self-borrowing in Tempo, and a book review on Maryanne Amacher in Music Theory Online. He serves as an Editorial Assistant for Music Theory Spectrum and as Webmaster for SMT’s Post-1945 Music Analysis Interest Group. He previously received a BA in Music and Mathematics from the University of Chicago and an MA in Music Composition from Eastman, where he expects to receive his PhD in Music Theory in May 2024.