Laura EmmeryView profile
Associate Professor
Laura Emmery is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at Emory University, specializing in 20th/21st-century music and post-tonal theory. Her research examines Cold War cultural diplomacy through Yugoslav avant-garde music and experimental music scenes. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has taught at Emory since 2014, progressing from Visiting Assistant Professor to her current rank. Her major works include *Cold War Cultural Diplomacy: Music Festivals in Yugoslavia*, *Yugoslav Avant-Garde Music, 1945–1991*, and studies on Elliott Carter’s string quartets. She has received prestigious grants such as the Fulbright Fellowship and Paul Sacher Stiftung Research Grant. Emmery also co-leads a music-and-health initiative exploring rhythmic movement training for Alzheimer’s patients, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and Emory’s Cognitive Empowerment Program. Emmery serves as Editor-in-Chief of *Music Theory Spectrum* (2023–2027) and Editor of *Contemporary Music Review* (2021–2025). Her research bridges musicology, cultural history, and interdisciplinary health studies, with over 20 peer-reviewed articles published in journals like *Twentieth-Century Music* and *The Musical Quarterly*. Notable awards include the Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Publication Award (2020) and multiple Emory University grants. Her work often intersects with archival research, including editing Carter’s unpublished lectures and Serbian avant-garde materials. Current projects include a monograph on Yugoslav minimalism and collaborative studies on music’s role in neurorehabilitation.
