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Laura Emmery, PhD

Associate Professor of Music Theory
Department of Music, Emory University College of Arts and Sciences, United States

Dr. Laura Emmery is Associate Professor of Music Theory. Her research focuses on 20th/21st-century music and post-tonal theory, with an interdisciplinary approach that draws on philosophy, literary criticism, critical theory and performance studies. Laura’s current project examines political, social, and cultural events that led to the momentous avant-garde and experimental music scene in Belgrade, Serbia (then Yugoslavia) from 1945 until 1991, ending with the year when all artistic activities came to a sudden halt with the start of the Yugoslav civil wars. It follows the emergence of a postwar Yugoslav cultural program that made the republic a magnet for experimental musicians and artists from throughout the Western and Eastern Blocs, through the sudden and violent dissolution of that program with the collapse of the political state.

Laura’s recently published monograph, Compositional Process in Elliott Carter’s String Quartets: A Study in Sketches (2020) and a critical edition, Elliott Carter Speaks: Unpublished Lectures (2022) are a culmination of her archival research at the Paul Sacher Stiftung for nearly a decade. Her articles have been published in Twentieth-Century Music, Contemporary Music Review, The Musical Quarterly, and Music Theory Online, among others.

Laura’s research has been supported by the Fulbright Scholars Fellowship, American Philosophical Society's Franklin Research Grant, the Society for American Music’s Edward T. Cone Fellowship, Paul Sacher Stiftung Research Grant, Albert and Elaine Borchard European Studies Fellowship, and by several Emory University grants, including the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence Public Scholarship Advancement Fund, Program to Enhance Research and Scholarship, University Research Committee–Halle Institute for Global Research and Learning, and the Provost Research Grant, among others.

Laura is also a co-PI for a joint music and health project “Moving in space and time: identifying spatial and temporal components of complex rhythmic movement training for people with prodromal Alzheimer’s disease,” with faculty from the departments of medicine and biomedical engineering. This project has been funded by the Senior Vice-President of Research at the Intersection Fund and Innovation Accelerator core of the Cognitive Empowerment Program.

Laura serves as associate editor for Music Theory Spectrum (2020–2024) and editor for Contemporary Music Review (2021–2025). Previously, she served on the SMT Committee on the Status of Women and co-chaired SMT's Post-1945 Music Analysis and Autographs and Archival Documents Interest Groups.

Laura was born in Paris (France), lived in Belgrade (Serbia, then Yugoslavia) and Vienna (Austria), where she studied piano performance and music theory in music conservatories. She completed her undergraduate and graduate education in the United States, receiving her Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of California in Santa Barbara in 2014. Laura joined the music faculty at Emory University in 2014 first as Visiting Assistant Professor and then as Assistant Professor in 2016.

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