FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music is pleased to announce the appointments of Lina Tabak and Amy Tai to its music theory faculty, effective Aug. 1.
Tai has been named assistant professor of music in music theory. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in music theory at Yale University.
Tabak will begin as acting assistant professor of music in music theory before becoming assistant professor upon conferral of her doctorate in the fall. She is currently an all-but-dissertation Ph.D. candidate at CUNY Graduate Center.
“We are most fortunate to be able to welcome these extraordinary talents to our faculty early in their careers,” said Abra Bush, David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean. “We cannot wait to see how their promising futures are realized at the Jacobs School and how our students benefit from them.”
Tai has published on phenomenology and dance-music relationships and presented her research at annual meetings of the Society for Music Theory, Royal Music Association and other conferences. Her research interests include Labanotation, currently one of the most widely used dance notation systems, narrativity in dance and music and the history of modern dance and ballet.
Tabak has taught music theory and aural skills courses at Brooklyn College and New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Her research explores the relationships between rhythm, perceived meter and stylistic expertise, particularly through the analysis of Latin American folk repertoires. She was awarded the 2023 SMT-40 Dissertation Fellowship.
Tabak has presented at several national and international conferences, including those of the Society for American Music, Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory and Society for Music Theory, which granted her the 2020 SMT Student Presentation Award. She has published in Musica Theorica and Súmula: Revista de teoría y análisis musical.
In addition, Tabak served as co-chair of the program committee for the 2023 Symposium, Theoretical, Analytical and Cognitive Approaches to Rhythm & Meter in World Musics and is currently an associate editor for the journal Analytical Approaches to World Musics.
“Lina is a brilliant young scholar and pedagogue whose research in Latin American music is already revolutionizing the way we think about rhythm and meter,” said Kyle Adams, Music Theory Department chair. “Amy’s research on the intersections of music and dance represents an exciting and growing area of music theory and will be a wonderful way to further our department’s interdisciplinary goals.”
