Theory & Composition Faculty

Brent Auerbach

Professor, Music Theory, Area Coordinator

A headshot of Brent Auerbach.
Dr. Auerbach's research focuses primarily on extending the concept of the musical motive as it pertains to analysis. Other research interests include the group-mathematic properties of harmonic sequences, pedagogy, and the aesthetics of Baroque composition and counterpoint.
A headshot of Brent Auerbach.
Jeffrey W. Holmes

Professor, Director of Jazz & African American Music Studies, Composition, Conductor

Jeffrey W. Holmes.
Holmes plays keyboards with the Paul Winter Consort, leads the Jeff Holmes Big Band featuring his wife, vocalist Dawning Holmes, and plays lead trumpet with the New England Jazz Ensemble. Recent recordings as performer and/or composer/arranger include the Jeff Holmes Quartet release "Of One's Own," the New England Jazz Ensemble’s “Peter and The Wolf“, HGTS’s “…and then they played…” and projects by Paul Winter, colleague Felipe Salles, and Earl MacDonald. He continues to appear as a guest conductor/clinician/adjudicator and performer/composer/arranger.
Jeffrey W. Holmes.
Jason Hooper

Senior Lecturer II, Music Theory

Jason Hooper
Jason Hooper is a music theorist specializing in the theory and analysis of tonal music, historical and contemporary theories of form, and new approaches to theory pedagogy. His articles and reviews appear in Music Theory Spectrum, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale, and Theory and Practice. Jason was co-editor (vol. 44), editor (vol. 45), and associate editor (vol. 46) of Theory and Practice and previously served on the editorial boards of Intégral and Indiana Theory Review.
Jason Hooper
Catrina Kim

Assistant Professor of Music Theory

A headshot of Catrina Kim in front of a window.
Catrina's work in Romantic form focuses on fragmentary treatments of the sonata and the slow introduction in the music of Fanny Hensel and other nineteenth-century composers; articles on Hensel's chamber music is forthcoming in Music Theory Spectrum and Modeling Musical Analysis, edited by John Peterson and Kim Loeffert (Oxford University Press). Catrina also writes on the intersections of music theory pedagogy with service, labor, diversity, and feminist thought; this work appears in Theory and Practice, Music Theory Spectrum, and Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom, edited by Melissa Hoag (Routledge Press; coauthored with Aaron Grant).
A headshot of Catrina Kim in front of a window.
Salvatore Macchia

Professor; Composition, String Bass

Salvatore Macchia.
Professor Macchia has performed in the European and jazz traditions throughout America and Europe, and has been the contrabass soloist with the Berkshire Choral Festival Orchestra, Dinosaur Annex under Gunther Schuller, Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra (where he serves as principal bass), Jazz Composer's Orchestra and at the Boston Festival of Quarter Tone Music. He has premiered nearly 100 compositions featuring the doublebass.
Salvatore Macchia.
Miriam Piilonen

Assistant Professor, Music Theory; Honors Program Director

A black and white photograph of Miriam Piilonen.
Miriam Piilonen is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Theorizing Music Evolution: Darwin, Spencer, and the Limits of the Human (2024 OUP), a critical examination of ideas about musical origins, with emphasis on nineteenth-century music-evolutionary texts by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Miriam’s research interests span a range of topics in the history of music theory, composition and songwriting, electronic music and sound production, and new media studies.
A black and white photograph of Miriam Piilonen.
Alan Reese

Lecturer in Music Theory

A headshot of Alan Reese.
Alan Reese is a music theorist specializing in post-tonal analysis, as well as music and politics. His interest in post-tonal music includes analytical approaches to the compositions of Karol Szymanowski, Grażyna Bacewicz, and Undine Smith Moore. Meanwhile, his research on the intersection between music and politics focuses on post-9/11 country music, as well as the influence of neoliberalism in the music theory classroom.
A headshot of Alan Reese.
Felipe Salles

Professor, Jazz Studies, Composition, Conductor, Saxophone

Felipe Salles holding three music instruments including a saxophone.
A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Felipe Salles has been an active musician in the US since 1995, where he has worked and recorded with prominent jazz artists, including Randy Brecker, Paquito D’Rivera, David Liebman, Melissa Aldana, Lionel Loueke, Jerry Bergonzi, Chico Pinheiro, Magos Herrera, Sofia Rei, Yosvany Terry, Jovino Santos Neto, Oscar Stagnaro, Luciana Souza, and Bob Moses. He has toured extensively in Europe, North and South America, India and Australia, as a sideman and as a leader of his own group.
Felipe Salles holding three music instruments including a saxophone.
Christopher White

Associate Professor, Music Theory; Graduate Program Director

A headshot of Christopher White.
Christopher White remains an avid organist, having studied with Haskell Thompson and James David Christie. As a member of the Three Penny Chorus and Orchestra, he has appeared on NBC's Today Show and as a quarterfinalist on America's Got Talent. He currently serves as secretary for the New England Conference of Music Theorists.
A headshot of Christopher White.