Justin Lavacek

Assistant Professor of Music Theory

Department(s)

Music History, Theory and Ethnomusicology, Music Theory

Contact Information

Office Location: 
Music Building
Office #: 
212

Justin Lavacek holds a PhD in music theory from the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.  Specializing in theory and analysis of European music before 1750, his recent publications include “Hidden Coloration: Deep Metrical Flexibility in Machaut,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 32/1 (2022) and “Contrapuntal Ingenuity in the Motets of Machaut,” Integral 28/29 (2014-15). Dr. Lavacek teaches a wide variety of classes on medieval and Renaissance musics, 16th- and 18th-century counterpoint, and the history of Western theory.  His commitment to pedagogy is reflected in his recent article “I Got Isorhythm: Recreating the ars nova Motet in the Theory Classroom,” Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy (2021).  Lavacek has also authored recent book reviews concerning medieval music, to be found in Notes: The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 77/1 (2020) and Music Theory Online 22/2 (2016).  Not limited to early music, Lavacek’s article “Mozart’s Harmonic Design in the Secco Recitatives,” Theoria 22 (2015) was winner of the outstanding article award from the Mozart Society of America.  An active conference speaker, Lavacek has delivered a number of papers at the national conference of the Society for Music Theory, the International Congress on Medieval Studies, and at a special conference on Modes, Church Tones, Tonality: Tonal Spaces c. 1550-c. 1720 in Ferrara, Italy, among many regional conferences. He is currently working on the ways in which medieval dance shaped mensural articulation in 14th-c. French song and a modular map of medieval pitch space that expands the enchiriadis gamut into a three-dimensional Tonnetz.  He is an elected member of the executive board of the Texas Society for Music Theory. He is currently working on the ways in which medieval dance shaped mensural articulation in 14th-c. French song and a modular map of medieval pitch space that expands the enchiriadis gamut into a three-dimensional Tonnetz.  He is an elected member of the executive board of the Texas Society for Music Theory. He is currently working on the ways in which medieval dance shaped mensural articulation in 14th-c. French song and a modular map of medieval pitch space that expands the enchiriadis gamut into a three-dimensional Tonnetz.  He is an elected member of the executive board of the Texas Society for Music Theory. He is currently working on the ways in which medieval dance shaped mensural articulation in 14th-c. French song and a modular map of medieval pitch space that expands the enchiriadis gamut into a three-dimensional Tonnetz.  He is an elected member of the executive board of the Texas Society for Music Theory.