Megan Kaes Long

(she/her/hers)

  • Associate Professor of Music Theory

Areas of Study

Education

  • PhD, music theory, Yale University, 2014
  • MA, music theory, Yale University, 2010
  • BA, music, Pomona College, 2008

Biography

Megan Kaes Long studies European song traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries and the theoretical discourses that describe them. Her book, Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020 and won the Society for Music Theory's Wallace Berry Award in 2021.

Long’s articles have appeared in Music Theory Spectrum, the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Online, and Open Access Musicology and her research has been supported by grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her 2018 article, “Cadential Syntax and Tonal Expectation in Late Sixteenth-Century Homophony” won the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award.

Long is the editor of SMT-V, the Society for Music Theory’s peer-reviewed video-journal. Long is also a mezzo-soprano who specializes in music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

Long's work was honored with Oberlin College & Conservatory's Excellence in Teaching Award for the 2021-22 academic year.

book cover for "hearing Harmony."

  • “Reassessing the Plagal Cadence in Byrd and Morley.” Music Theory Online 28, no. 3 (2022).
  • Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century . New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
  • ‘‘What do Signatures Signify? The Curious Case of 17th-Century English Key.’’Journal of Music Theory 64, no. 2 (2020).
  • ‘‘Cadential Syntax and Tonal Expectation in Late Sixteenth-Century Homophony.’’ Music Theory Spectrum 40, no. 1 (2018).
  • ‘‘Characteristic Tonality in the Balletti of Gastoldi, Morley, and Hassler.’’ Journal of Music Theory 59, no. 2 (2015).

 

  • Society for Music Theory Wallace Berry Award, for Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century
  • Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award, for “Cadential Syntax and Tonal Expectation in Late Sixteenth-Century Homophony”
  • American Council of Learned Societies , Fellow, 2020–21
  • National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, 2016
  • Yale University, Distinguished Dissertation Award, 2014

Fall 2024

Aural Skills I — MUTH 101
Counterpoint — MUTH 325

Spring 2025

Aural Skills II — MUTH 102
Music Theory I — MUTH 131

Notes

Megan Kaes Long Article Published

August 1, 2023

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long published an article, "Hexachordal Solmization and Syllable-Invariant Counterpoint in the Vocal Music of William Byrd" in Music Theory Spectrum. The article explores how the principles of solmization shaped Byrd's contrapuntal decisions and tonal strategies.

Megan Kaes Long Publishes Article in "Music Theory Online"

September 29, 2022

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long published an article, "Reassessing the Plagal Cadence in Byrd and Morley," in the most recent issue of Music Theory Online. The article unpacks the obscure history of the plagal cadence by looking at representative examples from Byrd's compositions and Morley's theory treatise.

Megan Kaes Long participates in visiting scholar program at the Jacobs School of Music at IU Bloomington

October 6, 2021

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long participated in the Robert Samels Visiting Scholar Program at the Jacobs School of Music at IU Bloomington in September. As part of the Five Friends Master Class series, Long delivered two lectures, led a workshop for graduate students, and met with students and faculty during her three-day residency.

Megan Kaes Long publishes article in Journal for Music Theory

January 6, 2021

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long published an article, “What do Signatures Signify? The Curious Case of Seventeenth-Century English Key,” in the most recent issue of the Journal for Music Theory. The article traces how key signatures transformed from a feature of notation to an aspect of music theory in seventeenth-century England.

Megan Kaes Long Publishes Monograph

June 8, 2020

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long published a monograph, Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford University Press). The book, which appears on the series Oxford Studies in Music Theory, explores how the regular rhythms and text setting of sixteenth-century popular song provoked encouraged a kind of listening that we now think of as tonal.

Megan Kaes Long Awarded Fellowship

April 10, 2020

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long was awarded an American Council Of Learned Societies Fellowship for the 2020–2021 academic year to support her research on tonal structure in the music of William Byrd.

Megan Long Gives Invited Talk

February 25, 2020

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Long gave an invited talk titled "What Do Signature Signify: The Curious Case of Seventeenth-Century English Key" on February 21, 2020 at the University of Chicago.

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