Simon Music Center, M225J
Education
- Ph.D., Columbia University, 2017
- M.Phil., Columbia University, 2014
- M.A., University of Washington, 2011
- B.A., University of Washington, 2008
Orit Hilewicz is associate professor of music theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
She earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Columbia University in 2017. Before joining the faculty at IU in 2022, she was assistant professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music. For 2020–2021, she was named an internal fellow at the University of Rochester Humanities Center.
Hilewicz’s research explores how music analysis can account for the multiplicity of cultural discourses with which musical works engage—including visual and literary arts, films, and media art. Her articles, published in journals including Music Theory Online, Music Analysis, and Perspectives of New Music, offer close analysis of post-1900 Western concert music from an intertextual perspective. She has presented her work in national and international conferences including the Society for Music Theory, the American Musicological Society, the International Musicological Society, and the Music Analysis conference.
Hilewicz has held several leadership and editorial roles in the field. She was elected member-at-large on the Executive Board of the Society for Music Theory (2026–29), and she serves on the editorial boards of Perspectives of New Music and SMT-Pod. She previously served on the Society for Music Theory Publication Awards Committee (Articles; 2023–24) and the Program Committee (2025), and held editorial roles as coeditor of Theory and Practice, assistant editor of Perspectives of New Music, and editorial board member of Music Theory Spectrum.
Selected Publications
“Experiencing Spaces through Musical Subjects in Caroline Shaw’s Plan and Elevation and Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel.” Music Analysis 44/ii (2025): 205–245. https://doi.org/10.1111/musa.12248.
“Berio’s Compositional Poetics as Performance: Continuo for Orchestra and Ekphrasis (Continuo II).” Perspectives of New Music 62/1 (2024): 79–132.
“Anxiety and The Real Thing: Queer Ekphrasis, Acoustic Palimpsest, and Autistic Listening.” Kunsttexte 4 (2022): https://doi.org/10.48633/ksttx.2022.4.91645
“Schoenberg’s Cinematographic Blueprint: A Programmatic Analysis of Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene (1929–1930),” Music Theory Online 27/1 (2021): https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.1/mto.21.27.1.hilewicz.html
“A Film Scene for Arnold Schoenberg’s Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene (1929–1930),” SMT-V 7/2 (2021). Coauthored with artist and filmmaker Stephen Sewell: http://www.smt-v.org/archives/volume7.html#a-film-scene-for-schoenbergs-begleitungsmusik-zu-einer-lichtspielscene
“On the Swerve and the Flow in Thomas Adès’s Polaris, op. 29,” Perspectives of New Music 57/1–2 (2019).
“Reciprocal Interpretations of Music and Painting: Representation Types in Schuller, Tan, and Davies after Paul Klee,” Music Theory Online 24/3 (2018): http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.18.24.3/mto.18.24.3.hilewicz.html