Texas Society for Music Theory
Description: Homepage for Frank Lehman, PhD: Music Theorist & Film Musicologist, Assoc. Professor at Tufts University. Author of Hollywood Harmony, Star Wars Theme Catalogue
I am an Associate Professor of Music at Tufts University , and hold degrees from Brown University (B.A.) and Harvard University (PhD). As a music theorist, I am interested in how music works and what effects it has on its listeners. My research has explored a range of styles and repertoires, from nineteenth century symphonies to film scores to ambient albums.
I’ve recently focused on the composers John Williams and Hans Zimmer. My work has been featured in The Washington Post , The New Yorker , The Chronicle of Higher Ed , NPR ( WBUR , WFAE , & KCRW ), The Boston Globe , The Ringer , and an ever-increasing number of podcasts and interviews. I have given talks on musical structure, meaning, and psychology at a variety of venues, including at the opening season of the Tanglewood Learning Institute in Lenox MA.
My first book, entitled Hollywood Harmony: Musical Wonder and the Sound of Cinema , was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. This book examines the way that music in American cinema structures a filmgoer’s experience of both narrative and temporality, and it focuses especially on the evocation of the affect of wonder through non-functional ‘pantriadic’ chromaticism.
Texas Society for Music Theory