Michael Baker
Professor of Music Theory and Composition
Michael Baker is a professor of music theory at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches courses on harmony, counterpoint, musical form, aural skills, and the analysis and interpretation of music. His research interests involve text-music relationships in songs and operas, Schenkerian studies, semiotic approaches to musical meaning, teaching approaches to music theory, and interdisciplinary connections between music and other areas of study. His publications appear in journals such as College Music Symposium, Theory and Practice, Music Theory and Analysis, The Journal of Schenkerian Studies, The Musical Times, Music Analysis, Tempo, and The American Journal of Semiotics, and has published essays in edited collections such as Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers (Oxford Univ. Press, 2018), Singing in Signs (Oxford Univ. Press, 2018), The Routledge Handbook on Music Signification (Routledge, 2020) and The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (Routledge, 2020).
In addition to his work within the College of Fine Arts, Michael teaches courses on interdisciplinary connections between music and other areas of study for the Lewis Honors College. He was the recipient of a teaching fellowship from Transdisciplinary Educational Approaches to advance Kentucky (TEK), for his course “Math, Music and Beyond,” co-taught with Dr. Peter Hislop of the math department. Along with Dr. Luke Bradley (neuroscience) and Dr. Timothy Moyers (music composition), he has worked on collaborative transdisciplinary research involving data sonification of cancer genomics, presenting workshops and talks at the University of Cambridge in 2024.
Michael is also an avid horn player and performs in several local civic and community ensembles such as the Lexington Brass Band, the Lexington Wind Orchestra, and the Sacred Winds Ensemble. During the summer months, he occasionally teaches music courses for a study-abroad program for music majors based in Salzburg, Austria. He has previously served as the director of graduate studies for the University of Kentucky School of Music and serves on numerous master’s degree and doctoral advisory committees, both within the School of Music and as an outside examiner for other colleges.
RECENT and UPCOMING COURSES
- “The Practice of Popular Music” (HON 252), Spring 2027.
- “Seminar in Music Theory: Art Song Analysis” (MUS 772), Fall 2026.
- “Math, Music, and Beyond” (TEK 300), Spring 2026.
- “Pedagogy of Music Theory” (MUS 674), Spring 2026.
RECENT and UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS and PRESENTATIONS
- “Reading and Misreading The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Presentation at the Semiotic Society of America, Pittsburgh, October 2026.
- “Mozart’s Cambiata-like Melodies.” Presentation at the 11th European Musical Analysis Conference, Barcelona, September 2026.
- “Song Analysis and Musical Meaning in the Undergraduate Music Curriculum: Two Analytical Vignettes.” Presentation at the Semiotic Society of America, Toronto, October 2024.
- “Teaching Interdisciplinary Connections with MathScienceMusic.” Presentation at the Kentucky Music Educator’s Association, February 2024.
- “Conceptual Blending and Mendelssohn’s Poetics of Song.” The American Journal of Semiotics 39 (2023): 23–46.
- “Karate Kid Pedagogy and Interdisciplinary Priming in the Music Theory Classroom.” Presentation at the Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, November 2022.
- Review of Timothy Cutler, Bending the Rules of Music Theory: Lessons from Great Composers. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 36 (2022).
- “Strategic Incompletion in Clara Schumann’s Lieder.” Music Theory and Analysis 8 (2021): 284–295.