Assistant Professor Researches Theories of Rhythm and Meter

Yonatan Malin joined the faculty in the Music Department as an assistant professor in August 2004. Malin instructs classes on music theory and analysis and the history of western music, including the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods.

Prior to coming to Wesleyan, Malin taught music at the University of Colorado. He completed his undergraduate work at Harvard University and earned his Ph.D. is from the University of Chicago. His dissertation is on “Metric Dissonance and Music-Text Relations in the German Lied,” and his primary areas of research include German Lied, Romanticism, relations between music and text, and theories of rhythm and meter. Malin is also interested theories of metaphor, and traditions of Jewish liturgical chant.

“Wesleyan attracted me because of the quality of the students. I have found them to be bright, engaged, and open,” he says. “Wesleyan also attracted me because of the range of musical activities in the department and on campus. And finally, Wesleyan attracted me because of the quality of the faculty, in the music department and throughout the university.”

Malin recently presented a paper at the meeting of the Society for Music Theory, on “Metric Analysis and the Metaphor of Energy: A Way into Selected Songs by Schumann, Wolf, and Schoenberg.”

A review of a book on Schumann’s Dichterliebe is coming out soon in the journal “Music Theory Spectrum.”

Malin lives in Middletown, with his wife Diana Lane, and two daughters Avivah, 5, and Sarah, 8 months. Aside from music, Malin enjoys hiking, skiing and being outdoors with his family.