Catherine Mayes

Catherine Mayes is an Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Utah's School of Music, where she has taught since 2012 (promoted to Associate Professor in 2019). Previously, she held positions at Ithaca College, Cornell University, and the University of Notre Dame. Her academic journey includes a PhD from Cornell University, a BMus from McGill University, and an ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Her research centers on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European music with groundbreaking work on Viennese engagement with Eastern Europe. Key interests include exoticism, nationalism, music-gender-class intersections, cross-cultural musical experiences, Hungarian Romani music, and historical dance. She examines how music functioned as both social practice and commodity, shaping identities and cultural boundaries through gendered and classed lenses.

Mayes' publications reveal consistent exploration of music's role in cross-cultural encounters, particularly how Eastern European musical elements were commodified and transformed in Western contexts. Her work bridges historical musicology with cultural studies, emphasizing the social construction of musical meaning and the ideological frameworks behind national style concepts.

She has received significant recognition:

• Westrup Prize from Music & Letters (2015) for her article on Eastern European national music
• University of Utah College of Fine Arts Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching (2018)
• Virgil C. Aldrich Internal Faculty Fellowship (2018)

Research funding includes American Musicological Society subventions (2024), U.S. Department of Education grants, and university fellowships. As an educator, she mentors master's students and teaches courses ranging from Music History Survey to specialized seminars on exoticism and national identity. Her professional service includes leadership roles in the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music and American Musicological Society.