Miriam Piilonen

Miriam Piilonen is a music theorist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. She is the author of Theorizing Music Evolution: Darwin, Spencer, and the Limits of the Human (2024, Oxford University Press), a critical examination of ideas about musical origins, with emphasis on nineteenth-century music-evolutionary texts by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Her second book, currently in progress and tentatively titled Music Theory on the Internet, historicizes and critically analyzes “music theory” as it has appeared online from the 1960s to the present.

Miriam’s research spans a range of topics in the history of music theory, composition and songwriting, electronic music and sound production, and new media studies. Her work is published in peer-reviewed journals Critical Inquiry, Music Theory Spectrum, Empirical Musicology Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and her chapter, “Music Theory and Social Media” is in The Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory. She has presented at numerous national and international venues, including the annual meetings of the Society for Music Theory, American Musicological Society, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and American Comparative Literature Association.

Miriam’s teaching is centered on helping musicians develop technical and interpretive skillsets through improvisation, composition, dictation, and analysis. Past courses have addressed a range of topics in music theory and ear training, such as Analysis of Pop and Rock, Music Since 1945, Chicago Music Scenes, and Music Theory Pedagogy.

Miriam grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, where she learned Appalachian Flatfooting, clarinet, saxophone, and keyboards. She earned the Bachelor of Music in composition from the New England Conservatory, Master of Science in human development from Virginia Tech, and PhD in music theory and cognition from Northwestern University. As an artist, she has composed for a range of ensembles, is the tenor sax player in the band Pledge Drive, trains in Chicago Footwork with the renowned battle clique Creation Global, and is one half of the electronic music duo Cooler Older Brother (with Benjamin Court).

Miriam lives in Northampton with her spouse Benjamin Court, daughter Aurora, and cat Charlie. Beyond her musical life, she loves rock climbing, swimming, and reading.